Full text of "Space Science Fiction v01n04 (1953 02) (Gorgon776)"

See other formats

r*j

rn'

T»

-n

mm*

fid?

ffi

ULLR UPRISING
BY H . BEAN PIPER
CHRISTOPHERMORRISON

SCIENCE FICTION

SECRETS ENTRUSTED TO A FEW

THERE ARE some things that can not be generally told— things you
ought to know. Great truths are dangerous to some— but factors for
personal power and accomplishment in the hands of those who under-
stand them. Behind the tales of the miracles and mysteries of the
ancients, lie centuries of their secret probing into nature's laws— their
amazing discoveries of the hidden processes of man's mind, and the
mastery of life's problems. Once shrouded in mystery to avoid their
destruction by mass fear and ignorance, these facts remain a useful
heritage for the thousands of men and women who privately use them
in their homes today.

THIS FREE BOOK

The Rosicrucians (not a religious organization), an age-old brotherhood of learning,
have preserved this secret wisdom in their archives for centuries. They now invite
you to share the practical helpfulness of their teachings. Write today for a free copy
of the book, "The Mastery of Life/' Within its pages may lie a new life of opportu-
nity for you. Address: Scribe 0. K. J.

Rosicrucians

(AMORC) • SAN JOSE • CALIFORNIA • U. S. A.

r 1

Scribe: O. K. J. The Rosicrucians (AMORC)

San Jose, California, U. S. A.

Please send copy of sealed booklet, "The Mastery of Life,” which
■ I shall read as directed.

, Name

Address

City

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

FEBRUARY, 1953 Vol. 1. No. 4

SERIAL

ULLR UPRISING, by H. Beam Piper (First of Two Parts) .... 4

FEATURE NOVELETTE

SECURITY, by Pool Anderson 120

SHORT STORIES

THE HUNTERS, by William Morrison 76

EXILE, by H. B. Fyfe 101

RELATIVITY, by John Christopher 115

ARTICLE

SOLUTION UNKNOWN, by Milton A. Rofhman 91

REVIEW

SCIENCE— FACT AND FICTION, by George O. Smith .... 98

DEPARTMENTS

EDITORIAL 2

COMING EVENTS 90

STRAIGHT, PLACE AND SHOW 97

TAKE-OFF 153

COVER BY EBEL • ILLUSTRATIONS BY EBEL • EMSH • ORBAN • VAN DONGEN

JOHN RAYMOND • Publisher LESTER DEL REY • Editor

BILL BRADLEY • Circulation Mgr. JOHN FELL • Associate Editor

DAVID GELLER • Advertising Mgr. MILTON BERWIN • Art Director

H. L. MITCHELL • West Coast Office JOHN VINCENT • Assoc. Editor

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION is published monthly by Space Publications, Inc., 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York 10, N. Y. All stories in this issue are new and have not previously been
published. No actual persons are designated in works of fiction, either by name or character ;
any similarity is coincidental. Copyright 1953 by Space Publications, Inc. All rights, including
translation reserved. Entry as second-class matter applied for at the Post Office, at New
York, N. Y. Subscriptions $3.50 per year in the United States and Possessions ; $4.50 per year
In Canada ; $5.00 elsewhere. Not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or art work. All
submissions must include return postage to expedite the return of manuscripts not acceptable.

$3.50 per year in U. S. A." printed in u. s. a. 173 35 <k per copy

AN EDITORIAL ON

IMMORTALITY

If a little genie appeared but of a lamp or a Mazda bulb and gave
the average man one gift, unlimited and complete, the chances are most
people would choose money out of habit. But if they had a little time to
think it over, they’d change that to a request for immortality.

Nobody really wants to die, provided they aren’t already half-dead
from extreme age, painful sickness, or mental despair over something
or other. The only problem would be to phrase the wish in such a way
that the genie couldn’t trick one — such as giving immortality without
lasting youth, or in some form that would make it eternally painful. But
a little caution should take care of it — what people, want, of course, is
simple enough: eternal life under conditions of perfect physical health
and no aging beyond the body’s optimum balance between youthful-
ness and maturity.

That can probably never be had. But a lot of science fiction stories
have concerned themselves with extremely long life, into the thousands
of years, with the other conditions about as given. Since it is one of
man’s oldest wish-dreams, it is inevitable that it should be a recurrent
theme in fiction, just as is telepathy. And there is some hope in science
that a few steps in this direction may some day be taken.

But I suspect the people who wish for it and who write about it haven't
done much real thinking on the subject. First, are you going to limit it,
or not? You can’t have the whole world immortal — even in a limited
sense. Overpopulation is bad enough already, under normal circum-
stances. We’d soon overpopulate the whole Solar System, even if the
other planets can be made habitable. And we can forget the stars; the
enormous amounts of fuel needed to reach them, even with 1 00 per cent
efficient conversion of matter to energy, will make more than coloniza-
tion by a limited number impossible around other suns. But if you limit
your immortality to a few, where do you draw that limit?

Also, if there is no such limit, you’ve practically put a stop to the race
making any progress within itself. If you choose only the best men —
how, nobody knows — you’ve put a permanent block in the way of
younger and pe-rhaps even better men getting into their positions.

But what about some of the consequences, even forgetting these
limits? What kind of politics will exist in a world of immortality? We
know that older people tend to be more conservative — not just because

they're older, but because they have formed their ideas under earlier
circumstances, and keeping up with a changing world is rough going.
Will things reach a static condition and stay there? Will the immortals
have all the power? Will there be wars? Stop and think a minute on that
one. Men who can figure on living to an age of a thousand years, all of
it physically good, may not be willing to lop off most of it as quickly as
a man who knows he is only giving up a very few years. Where will you
get your soldiers?

What about finance? At present, money draws interest. In the case
of an immortal, getting rich is no particular problem. Even at 1 per cent
interest, compounded annually, money doubles in about 70 years.
Starting with a thousand dollars, in a thousand years this would be over
sixteen million! But that money doesn’t come from nowhere! What
happens to such things as interest when a larger number of people
are willing to wait around for it to pile up?

What about morals and mores? Half of the things we do — such as
marriage, the way we bring up our children, our entertainment, etc.,
are all based on the fact that we know we live for a few years and
then go phht!

Trying to imagine one immortal man in the world is tough enough;
we can’t possibly guess what if might mean to him, and what his prob-
lems of keeping up would be. He might get used to having his friends
die off quickly, but just what pyschological changes would occur
within him?

Trying to imagine a world of immortals, or one where even a great
many people are immortal, is almost impossible. It’s a lot easier to
guess what would happen with the psi factor loose, even! Man is a
mortal animal — and to change that definition would be to change
man. and all his establishments to an almost unimaginable degree.

That, of course, is the business of science fiction — imagining that
which isn’t imaginable. It seems strange that more writers haven’t
gone into it in any great detail. If writers haven't, why haven’t the
readers, who are free to take up almost any question in the letter
columns of the magazines?

Or is this such a deeply ingrained wish-dream that nobody wants to
talk about it, and be logical about it? Is it something which can’t stand
the light of day, and which would automatically be a fool's wish? I
don't know the answers, but I'd like to have them from someone who
thinks he has!

Until then. I'll stick to the safe and sure request for scads of money
whenever the genie decides to pop up out of the cathode ray tube!

LESTER DEL REY

A STORY IN TWO PARTS

BY H. BEAM PIPER

ILLUSTRATED BY ORBAN

“The heathen geeks, they wear no breeks," the Terrans
sang. But on a crazy world like Ullr, clothes didn’t
make the fighting man. There both red and yellow
meant danger — and blood! First of two parts.

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

The big armor-tender vi-
brated, gently and not unpleas-
antly, as the contragravity field
alternated on and off. Sometimes
it rocked slightly, like a boat on
the water, and, in the big screen
which served in lieu of a window
at the front of the control-cabin,
the dingy-yellow landscape would
seem to tilt a little. The air was
faintly yellow, the sky was yel-
low with a greenish cast, and the
clouds were green-gray.

No human had ever set foot
on the surface, or breathed the
air, of Niflheim. To have done so
would have been instant death;
the air was a mixture of free
fluorine and fluoride gasses, the
soil was metallic fluorides, damp
with acid rains, and the river
was pure hydrofluoric acid. Even
the ordinary spacesuit would
have been no protection ; the
glass and rubber and plastic
would have disintegrated in a
matter of minutes. People came
to Niflheim, and worked the
mines and uranium refineries
and chemical plants, but they did
so inside power-driven and con-
tragravity-lifted armor, and they
lived on artificial satellites two
thousand miles off-planet. Nifl-
heim was worse than- airless;
much worse.

The chief engineer sat at his
controls, making the minor lat-
eral adjustments in the vehicle’s

position which were not possible
to the automatic controls. At his
own panel of instruments, a
small man with grizzled black
hair around a bald crown, and a
grizzled beard, chewed nervously
at the stump of a dead cigar and
listened intently. A large, plump-
faced, young man in soiled khaki
shirt and shorts, with extremely
hairy legs, was doodling on his
notepad and eating candy out of
a bag. And a black-haired girl in
a suit of coveralls three sizes too
big for her, and, apparently, not
much of anything else, lounged
with one knee hooked over her
chair-arm, staring into the
screen at the distant horizon.

“I can see them,” the girl said,
lifting a hand in front of her.
“At two o’clock, about on.e of my
hand’s-breat-hs above the hori-
zon. But only four of them.”

The man with the grizzled
beard put his face into the
fur around the eyepiece of the
telecopic-’visor and twisted a
dial. “You have good eyes, Miss
Quinton,” he complimented. “The
fifth’s inside the handling ma-
chine. One of the Ullrans. Gork-
rink.”

The largest of the specks that
had appeared on the horizon re-
solved itself into a handling-ma-
chine, a thing like an oversized
eontragravity-tank, with a bull-

ULLR UPRISING

dozer-blade, a stubby derrick-
boom instead of a gun, and
jointed, claw-tipped, arms at the
sides. The smaller dots grew
into personal armor — egg-shaped
things that sprouted arms and
grab-hooks and pushers in all di-
rections. The man with the griz-
zled beard began talking rapidly
into his hand-phone, then hung
it up. There was a series of
bumps, and the armor-tender,
weightless on contragravity,
shook as the handling-machine
came aboard.

“You ever see any nuclear
bombing, Miss Quinton?” the
young man with the hairy legs
asked, offering her his candy-
bag.

“Only by telecast, back Sol-
side,” Paula Quinton replied,
helping herself. “Test-shots at
the Federation Navy proving-
ground on Mars. I never even
heard of nuclear bombs being
used for mining till I came here,
though.”

“It’ll be something to see,” he
promised. “These volcanoes have
been dormant for, oh, maybe as
long as a thousand years ; there
ought to be a pretty good head
of gas down there. The volcanoes
we shot three months ago yielded
a fine flow of lava with all sorts
of metals — nickel, beryllium, va-
nadium, chromium, iridium, as
well as copper and iron.”

“What sort of gas were you
speaking about?” she asked.

“Hydrogen. That’s what’s go-
ing to make the fireworks ; it
combines explosively with flu-
orine. The hydrogen-fluorine
combination is what passes for
combustion here : the result is
hydrofluoric acid, the local equiv-
alent of water. The subsurface
hydrogen is produced when the
acid filters down through the
rock, combines with pure metals
underneath.”

The door at the rear of the
control-cabin opened, and Juan
Murillo, the seismologist, en-
tered, followed by an assistant,
who was not human. He was a
biped, vaguely humanoid, but he
had four arms and a face like a
lizard’s, and, except for some
equipment on belt, he was en-
tirely naked.

He spoke rapidly to Murillo, in
a squeaking jabber. Murillo
turned.

“Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink,”
he said, in Lingua Terra. Then
he turned back to Gomes as the
Ullran sat down in a chair by the
door.

“Well, she’s all yours, Lou-
rengo ; shoot the works.”

Gomes stabbed the radio-deto-
nator button in front of him.

Out on the rolling skyline, fifty
miles away, a lancelike ray of

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

blue-white light shot up into the
gathering dusk — a clump of five
rays, really, from five deep shafts
in an irregular pentagon half a
mile across, blended into one by
the distance. An instant later,
there was a blinding flash, like
sheet-lightning, and a huge ball
of varicolored fire belched up-
ward, leaving a series of smoke-
rings to float more slowly after
it. The fireball flattened, then
spread to form the mushroom-
head of a column of incandescent
gas that mounted to overtake it,
engorging the smoke-rings as it
rose, twisting, writhing, chang-
ing shape, turning to dark smoke
in one moment and belching
flame and crackling with light-
ning the next.

"In about half an hour,” the
large young man told Paula
Quinton, “the real fireworks
should be starting. What’s com-
ing up now is just small debris
from the nuclear blast. When the
shock-waves get down far
enough to crack things open, the
gas’ll come up, and then steam
and ash, and then magma.”

“Well, even this was worth
staying over for,” the girl said,
watching the screen.

“You going on to Ullr on the
City of Canberra?” Lourenco
Gomes asked. “I wish I were; I
have to stay over and make an-
other shot, in a month or so, and

I’ve had about all of Niflheim I
can take, now.”

“When are you going to
Terra?” the girl asked him.

“Terra? I don’t know; a year,
•two years. But I’m going to Ullr
on the next ship — the City of
Pretoria — if we get the next
blast off in time. They want me
to design some improvements on
a couple of power-reactors at
Keegark so I’ll probably see you
when I get there.”

“Here she comes!” the chief
engineer called. "Watch the base
of the column !”

The pillar of fiery smoke «nd
tlust, -still boiling up from where
the bombs had gone off far un-
derground, was being violently
agitated at the bottom. A series
of new flashes broke out, lifting
and spreading the incandescent
radioactive gasses, and then a
great gush of flame rose. A col-
umn of pure hydrogen- must have
rushed up into the vacuum creat-
ed by the explosion ; the next
blast of flame, in a lateral sheet,
came at nearly ten thousand feet
above the ground. Then geysers
of hot ash and molten rock spout-
ed upward ; some of the white-
hot debris landed almost at the
acid river, half-way to the
armor-tender.

“We’ve started a first-class
earthquake, too,” Murillo said,
looking at the instruments.

ULLR UPRISING

“About six big cracks opening in
the rock-structure. You know,
when this quiets down and cools
off, we’ll have more ore on the
surface than we can handle in
ten years, and more than we
could have mined by ordinary
means in fifty.”

“Well, that finishes our work,”
the large young man said, going
to a k«it-bag in the corner of the
cabin and getting out a bottle.
“Get some of those plastic cups,
over there, somebody; this one
calls for a drink.”

The Ullran, in the background,
rose quickly and squeaked apolo-
getically. Murillo nodded. “Yes,
of course, Gorkrink. No need for
you to stay here.” The Ullran
went out, closing the door behind
him.

“That taboo against Ullrans
and Terrans watching each other
bat and drink,” Paula Quinton
commented. “But you were
speaking to him in Lingua
Terra ; I didn’t know any of them
understood it.”

“Gorkrink does,” Murillo said,
uncorking the bottle and pouring
into the plastic cups. “None of
them can speak it, of course, be-
cause of the structure of their
vocal organs, any more than we
can speak their languages with-
out artificial aids. But I can talk
to him in Lingua Terra without
having to put one of those damn

gags in my mouth, and he can
pass my instructions on to the
others. He’s been a big help; I’ll
be sorry to lose him.”

“Lose him ?”

“Yes, his year’s up; he’s going
back to Ullr on the Canberra.
He’s from Keegark; claims to be
a prince, or something. But he’s
a damn good worker. Very
smart; picks things up the first
time you tell him. I’ll recommend
him unqualifiedly for any kind of
work with contragravity or
mechanized equipment.”

They all had drinks, now, ex-
cept the chief engineer, who
wanted a rain-check on his.

“Well, here’s to us,” Murillo
said. “The first A-bomb miners
in history . .

Carlos von Schlichten, General
of the troops on Ullr, threw
his cigarette away and set his
monocle more firmly in his
eye, stepping forward to let
Brigadier-General Themistocles
M’zangwe and little Colonel
Hideyoshi O’Leary follow him
out of the fort. On the little hun-
dred-foot-square parade ground
in front of the keep, his aircar
was parked, and the soldiers
were assembled.

Ten or twelve of them were
Terrans — a couple of lieutenants,

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

sergeants, gunners, technicians,
the sergeant-driver and' corporal-
gunner of his own car. The other
fifty-odd were Ullrans. They
stood erect on stumpy legs and
broad, six-toed feet. They had
four arms apiece, one pair from
true shoulders and the' other con-
nected to a pseudo-pelvis midway
down the torso. Their skins were
slate-gray and rubbery, speckled
with pinhead-sized bits of quartz
that had been formed from per-
spiration, since their body-
tissues were silicone instead of
carbon-hydrogen. Their narrow
heads were unpleasantly sauri-
an ; they had small, double-lid-
ded red eyes, and slit-li'ke nos-
trils, and wide mouths filled with
opalescent teeth. Being cold-
blooded, they needed no clothing,
beyond their belts and equip-
ment, and the emblem of the
Chartered Ullr Company painted
on their chests and backs. They
had no need for modesty, since
all were of the same gender —
■true, functional hermaphrodites;
any individual among them
could bear young, or fertilize the
ova of any other individual.

Fifteen years before, when he
had come to Ullr as a newly com-
missioned colonel in the army of
•the Ullr Company, it had taken
him some time to adjust. But
now his mind disregarded them
and went on worrying about the

mysterious disappearance of pet
animals from Terran- homes;
there must be some connection
with the subtle change he -had
noticed in the attitudes' of the
natives, but he couldn’t guess
what. He didn’t like it, though,
any more than the beginning of
cannibalism among the wild Jeel
tribesmen. Or the visit of Paula
Quinton on Ullr as field-agent
for the Extraterrestrials’ Rights
Association ; now was no time to
stir up trouble- among the na-
tives, unless h'is hunch was
wrong.

He shrugged it aside and
climbed into the command-car,
followed by M’zangwe and
O’Leary. Sergeant Harry Quong
and Corporal Hassan Bogdanoff
took their places in the front
seat; the car lifted, turned to
nose into the wind, and rose in a
slow spiral.

“Where now, sir?” Quong
asked.

"Back to Konkrook; to the
island.”

The nose ef the car swung east
by sou-th; the cold-jet rotors be-
gan humming, and the hot-jets
were cut in. The car turned from
the fort and the mountains and
shot away over the foothills to-
ward the coastal plains. Below
were forests, yellow-green with
•new foliage of the second grow-

ULLR UPRISING

ing-season of the equatorial
year, veined with narrow dirt
roads and spotted with occasional
clearings. Farther east, the dirty
gray woodsmoke of Ullr marked
the progress of the charcoal-
burnings. That was the only nat-
ural fuel on Ullr ; there was too
much silica on Ullr and not
enough of anything else; what
would be coal-seams on Terra
were strata of silicified wood.
And, of course, there was no
petroleum. There was less char-
coal being burned now than for-
merly ; the Ullr Company had
been bringing in great quantities
of synthetic thermoconcentrate-
fuel, and had been setting up
nuclear furnaces and nuclear-
electric power-plants, wherever
they gained a foothold on the
planet.

As planets went, Ullr was no
bargain, he thought sourly. At
times, he wished he had never
followed the lure of rapid pro-
motion and fanatically high pay
and left the Federation regulars
for the army of the Ullr Com-
pany. If he hadn’t, he’d probably
be a colonel, at five thousand sols
a year, tout maybe it would be
better to be a middle-aged colo-
nel on a decent planet than a
Company army general at
twenty-five thousand on this com-
bination icebox, furnace, wind-
tunnel and -stonepile, where the

water tasted like soapsuds and
left a crackly film when it dried ;
where the temperature ranged,
from pole to pole, between two
hundred and fifty and minus a
hundred and fifty Fahrenheit
and the Beaufort-scale ran up to
thirty; where nothing that ran
or swam or grew was fit for a
human to eat.

Ahead, the city of Konkrook
sprawled along the delta of the
Konk river and extended itself
inland. The river was dry, now.
Except in Spring, when it was a
red-brown torrent, it never ran
more than a trickle, and not a-t
all this late in the Northern
Summer. The aircar lost altitude,
and the hot-jet stopped firing.
They came gliding in over the
suburbs and the yellow-green
parks, over the 'low one-story
dwellings and shops, the lofty
temples and palaces, the fantasti-
cally-twisted towers, following a
street that became increasingly
mean and squalid as it neared
the industrial district along the
waterfront.

Von Schlichten, on the right,
glanced idly down, puffing slowly
on his cigarette. Then he stiff-
ened, the muscles around his
right eye clamping tighter on the
monocle. Leaning forward, he
punched Harry Quong lightly on
the man’s right shoulder.

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

“Yes, sir; I saw it,” the Chi-
nese-Australian driver replied.
“Terrans in trouble; bein’
mobbed by geeks. Aircar parked
right in the bloody middle of it.”

The car made a twisting, bank-
ing loop and came back, more
slowly. Von Schlichten had the
handset of the car’s radio, and
was punching out the combina-
tion of the Company guardhouse
on Gongonk Island; he held down
the signal button until he got an
answer.

“Von Schlichten, in car over
Konkrook. Riot on Fourth Ave-
nue, just off Seventy-second
Street.” No Terran could possi-
bly remember the names of Kon-
krook’s streets; even native
troops recruited from outside
found the numbers easier to
learn and remember. “Geeks
mobbing a couple of Terrans. I’m
going down, now, to do what I
can to help; send troops in a
'hurry. Kragan Rifles. And stand
by; my driver’ll give it to you as
it happens.”

The voice of somebody at the
guardhouse,’ bawling orders,
came out of the receiver as he
tossed the phone forward over
Harry Quong’s shoulder; Quong
caught it and began speaking
rapidly and urgently into it
while he steered with the other
hand. Von Schlichten took one of
the five-pound spiked riot-maces

out of the rack in front of him.

Bogdanoff rose into the ball-
turret and swung the twin 15-
mm.’s around, cutting loose.
Quong brought the car in fast, at
about shoulder-height on the
mob. Between them, they left
a swath of mangled, killed,
wounded, and stunned natives.
Then, spinning the car around,
Quong set it down hard on a
clump of rioters as close as pos-
sible to the struggling group
around the two Terrans. Von
Schlichten threw back the can-
opy and jumped out of the car,
O’Leary and M’zangwe behind
him.

There was another aircar, a
dark maroon civilian job, at the
curb; its native driver was
slumped forward over the con-
trols, a short crossbow-bolt stick-
ing out of his neck. Backed
against the closed door of a
house, a Terran with white hair
and a small beard was clubbing
futilely with an empty pistol. He
was wounded, and blood was
streaming over his face. His
companion, a young woman in a
long fur coat, was laying about
her with a native bolo-knife.

Von Schlichten’s mace had a
spiked ball-head, and a four-inch
spike in front of that. He
smashed the ball down on the
back of one Ullran’s head, and

ULLR UPRISING

jabbed another in the rump with
the spike.

“Zak! Zak!” he yelled, in
pidgin-Ullran. “Jik-jik, you liz-
ard-faced Creator’s blunder!”

The Ullran whirled, swinging
a blade somewhere between a big
butcher-knife and a small ma-
chete. His mouth was open, and
there was froth on his lips.

“Z’nidd suddabit!” he shrieked.

Von Schliehten parried the cut
on the steel shaft of his mace.
“Suddabit yourself!” he shouted
back, ramming the spike-end into
the opal-filled mouth. “And znidd
you, too,” he added, recovering
and slamming the ball-head down
on the narrow saurian skull. The
Ullran went down, spurting a
yellow fluid about the consistency
of gun-oil.

Ahead, one of the natives had
caught the wounded Terran with
both lower hands, and was rais-
ing a dagger with his upper
right. The girl in the fur coat
swung wildly, slashing the knife-
arm, then chopped down on the
creature’s neck.

Another of them closed with
the girl, grabbing her right arm
with all four hands and biting at
her; she screamed and kicked
her attacker in the groin, where
an Ullran is, if anything, even
more vulnerable than a Terran.
The native howled hideously, and
von Schliehten, jumping over a

couple of corpses, shoved the
muzzle of his pistol into the crea-
ture’s open mouth and pulled
the trigger, blowing its head
apart like a rotten pumpkin and
splashing both himself and the
girl with yellow blood and ran-
cid-looking gray-green brains.

O’Leary, jumping forward
after von Schliehten, stuck his
dagger into the neck of a rioter
and left it there, then caught the
gild around the waist with his
free arm. M’zangwe dropped his
mace and swung the frail-looking
man onto his back. Together,
they struggled back to the com-
mand-car, von Schliehten cover-
ing the retreat with his pistol.
Another rioter was aiming one
of the long-barreled native air-
rifles, holding the ten-inch globe
of the air-chamber in both lower
hands. Von Schliehten shot him,
and the native literally blew to
pieces.

For an instant, he wondered
how the small bursting-charge of
a 10-mm. explosive pistol-bullet
could accomplish such havoc, and
assumed that the native had been
carrying a bomb in his belt.
Then another explosion tossed
fragmentary corpses nearby, and
another and another. Glancing
quickly over his shoulder, he saw
four combat-cars coming in, fir-
ing with 40-mm. auto-cannon
and 15-mm. machine-guns. They

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

swept between the hovels on one
side and the warehouses on the
other, strafing the mob, darted
up to a thousand feet, looped,
and came swooping back, and
this time 'there were three long
blue-gray troop-carriers behind
them.

These landed in the hastily-
cleared street and began disgorg-
ing native Company soldiers —
Kragan mercenaries, he noted
with satisfaction. They carried
a modified version of the regular
Terran Federation infantry rifle,
stocked and sighted to conform
to their physical peculiarities,
with long, .thorn-like, triangular
bayonets. One platoon ran for-
ward, dropped to one knee, and
began firing rapidly into what
was left of the mob. Four-handed
soldiers can deliver a simply
astonishing volume of fire, par-
ticularly when armed with auto-
rifles having twenty-shot drop-
out magazines which can be
changed with the lower hands
without lowering the weapon.

There was a clatter of shod
hoofs, and a company of King
Jaikark of Konkrook’s cavalry
came trotting up on their six-
legged, lizard-headed, quartz-
speckled, mounts. Some of these
charged into side alleys, joyfully
lancing and cutting down fleeing
rioters, while others dismounted,

three tossing their reins to a
fourth, and went to work with
their crossbows. Von Schlichten,
who ordinarily entertained a dim
opinion of the King of Kon-
krook’s soldiery, admitted,
grudgingly, that it was smart
work ; four hands were a big help
in using a crossbow, too.

A Terran captain of native in-
fantry came over, saluting.

“Are you and your people all
right, general ?” he asked.

Von Schlichten glanced at the
front seat of his car, where
Harry Quong, a pistol in his
right hand, was still talking into
the radio-phone, and Hassan
Bogdanoff was putting fresh
belts into his guns. Then he saw
that they had gotten the wound-
ed man into the car. The girl,
having dropped her bolo, was
leaning against the side of the
car.

“We seem to be, Captain JPe-
dolsky. Very smart work; you
must have those vehicles of
yours on hyperspace-drive . . .
How is he, colonel?”

“We’d better get him to the
hospital, right away,” O’Leary
replied. “I think he has a con-
cussion.”

“Harry, call the hospital. Tell
them what the score is, and tell
them we’re bringing the casualty
in to their top landing stage . . .
Why, we’ll make out very nicely,

ULLR UPRISING

captain. You’d better stay around
with your Kragans and make
sure that these geeks of King
Jaikark’s don’t let the riot flare
up again and get away from
them. And don’t let them get the
impression that they can main-
tain order around here without
our help; the Company would
like to see that attitude discour-
aged.”

“Yes, sir; I understand.” Cap-
tain Pedolsky opened the pouch
on his belt and took out the false
palate and tongue-clicker with-
out which no Terran could do
more than mouth a crude and
barely comprehensible pidgin-
Ullran. Stuffing the gadget into
his mouth, he turned and began
jabbering orders.

Von Schlichten helped the girl
into the car, placing her on his
right. The wounded civilian was
propped up in the left corner of
the seat, and Colonel O’Leary
and Brigadier-General M’zangwe
took the jump-seats. The driver
put on the contragravity-field,
and the car lifted up.

“Them, see if there’s a flask
and a drinking-cup in the door
pocket next you,” he said. “I
think Miss Quinton could use a
drink.”

The girl turned. Even in her
present disheveled condition, she
was beautiful- — a trifle on the pe-

tite side, with black hair and
black eyes that quirled up oddly
at the outer corners. Her nails
were black-lacquered and spotted
with little gold stars, evidently a
new feminine fad from Terra.

“I certainly could, general . . .
How did you know my name?”

“You’ve been on Ullr for the
last three months ; ever since the
City of Canberra got in from
Niflheim. On Ullr, there aren’t
enough of us that everybody
doesn’t know all about everybody
else. You’re Dr. Paula Quinton;
you’re an extraterrestrial sociog-
rapher, and you’re a field-agent
for the Extraterrestrials’ Rights
Association, like Mohammed Fer-
riera, here.” He took the cup and
flask from Themistocles M’zang-
we and poured her a drink.
“Take this easy, now; Baldur
honey-rum, a hundred and fifty
proof.”

He watched her sip the stuff
cautiously, cough over the first
mouthful, and then get the rest
of it down.

“More?” When she shook her
head, he stoppered the flask and
relieved her of the cup. “What
were you doing in that district,
anyhow?” he wanted to know.
“I’d have thought Mohammed
Ferriera would have had more
sense than to take you there, or
go there, himself, for that
matter,” he added quickly.

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

“We went to visit a friend of
his, a 'native named Keeluk, who
seems to be a sort of combina-
tion clergyman and labor-lead-
er,” she replied. “I’m going to
observe labor conditions at the
North Pole mines in a short
while, and Mr. Keeluk was going
to give me letters of introduction
to friends of his at Skilk. We
talked with Mr. Keeluk for a
while, and when we came out, we
found that our driver had been
killed and a mob had gathered.
Of course, we were carrying pis-
tols; they’re part of this sur-
vival-kit you make everybody
carry, along with the emergency-
rations and the water desilicator.
Mr. Ferriera’s wasn’t loaded, but
mine was. When they rushed us,
I shot a couple of them, and then
picked up that big knife ... I
never in my life saw anything as
beautiful as you coming through
that mob swinging that war-
club!”

The aircar swung out over
Konkrook Channel and headed
toward the blue-gray Company
buildings on Gongonk Island,
and the Company airport.

“Just what happened, while
you and Mr. Ferriera were in
Keeluk’s house, Miss Quinton?”
O’Leary asked, trying not to
sound official. “Was Keeluk with
you all the time? Or did he go

out for a while, say fifteen or
twenty minutes before you left?”

“Why, yes, he did.” Paula
Quinton looked surprised. “How
did you guess it? You see, a dog
started barking, behind the
house, and he excused himself
and . . .”

“A dog?” von Schlichten al-
most shouted. The other officers
echoed him.

“Why, yes . . .” Paula Quin-
ton’s eyes widened. “But there
are no dogs on Ullr, except a few
owned by Terrans. And wasn’t
there something about . . . ?”

Von Schlichten had the radio-
phone and was calling the com-
mand car at the scene of the riot.
The sergeant-driver answered.

“Von Schlichten here; my
compliments to Captain Pedol-
sky, and tell him he’s to make
immediate and thorough search
of the house in front of which
the incident occurred, and ad-
joining houses. For his informa-
tion, that’s Keeluk’s house. Tell
him to look for traces of Gov-
ernor-General Harrington’s col-
lie, or any of the other terres-
trial animals that have been dis-
appearing— that goat, for in-
stance, or those rabbits. And I
want Keeluk brought in, alive
and in condition to be interro--
gated.”

“But, what . . .?” the girl
began, her voice puzzled.

ULLR UPRISING

“That’s why you were at-
tacked,” he told her. “Keeluk was
afraid to let you get away from
there alive to report hearing
that dog, so he went out and had
a gang of thugs rounded up to
kill you.”

“But he was only gone five
minutes.”

“In five minutes, I can put all
the troops in Konkrook into ac-
tion. Keeluk doesn’t have radio
or TV — we hope — but he has his
forces concentrated, and he has
a pretty good staff.”

“But Mr. Keeluk’s a friend of
ours. He knows what our Asso-
ciation is trying to do for his
people . .

“So he shows his appreciation
by setting that mob on you.
Look, he has a lot of influence in
that section. When you were at-
tacked, why wasn’t he out trying
to quiet the mob ?”

“When they jumped you, you
tried to get back into the house,”
M’zangwe put in. “And you
found the door barred against
you.”

“Yes, but . . .” The girl looked
troubled ; M’zangwe had guessed
right. “But what’s all the excite-
ment about the dog?-*What is it,
the sacred totem-animal of the
TJ Hr Company?”

“It’s just a big brown collie
named Stalin. But somebody
stole it, and Keeluk was keeping

it. We want to know why. We
don’t like geek mysteries — not
when they lead to murderous at-
tacks on Terrans, at least.”

It seemed to satisfy her, as the
aircar let down on the hospital
landing stage. But it didn’t sat-
isfy von Schlichten. He could
smell trouble brewing. Just what
could the geeks do with a dog?
Nothing, so far as he could tell —
but they didn’t go in for such be-
havior without what they con-
sidered a good reason. Good for
them, that is!

Ill

Governor-General Sidney Har-
rington had a ruddy outdoors-
man’s face and a ragged gray
mustache; in his old tweed coat
spotted with pipe ashes, he
might have been any of a dozen-
odd country-gentlemen of von
Scblichten’s boyhood in the Ar-
gentine. His face was composed
enough for the part, too. But be-
yond him in the governor’s office,
Lieutenant-Governor Eric Blount
matched von Schlichten’s frown,
his sandy-haired and younger
face puckered in worry.

“We picked up a few of Kee-
luk’s goon-gang,” von Schlichten
was reporting. “But I doubt if
they’ll tell us anything we don’t
already know. The dog was gone,
but we found where it had been

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

kept; £i.t least one of the rabbits
had been there, too. No trace of
the goat. Anyhow, the riot’s been
put down. The Kragans and some
of King Jaikark’s infantry are
patrolling the section. Jaikark’s
troops are busy making mass ar-
rests. Either more slaves for the
King’s court favorites or else our
Prime Minister Gurgurk wants
to use them for patronage.”

Blouiit nodded. “Gurgurk’s
buildinjt quite a political organi-
zation, lately. He must be about
ready to shove Jaikark off the
throne.”

“Oh, Gurgark wouldn’t dare
try anything like that,” Harring-
ton said- “He knows we wouldn’t
let him get away with it.”

“Then why’s he subsidizing
this Mad Prophet Rakkeed?”
Blount wanted to know. “Rak-
keed is preaching a holy war
against all Terrans and against
Jaikark. Gurkarg subsidizes
Rakkeed, and . . .”

“You haven’t any proof of
that,” the governor protested.

Blount shrugged, his face look-
ing grim- Von Schlichten knew
how he felt. They couldn’t prove
it, but both knew that Rakkeed
had been getting funds from the
hands of Gurgark. The prophet
had been stepping up his crusade
against the Terrans, and Gur-
gurk wasn’t the only one backing
him. The Prime Minister prob-

ably figured on using Rakkeed to
stir up an outbreak; then Gur-
gurk could step in, after Jaikark
was killed, put down the revolt he
helped incite, and claim to be the
best friend of the Company. But
the question was whether Rak-
keed could be used that way. He
was becoming more of a menace
than Gurgurk could ever be.
Everywhere they turned, Rak-
keed was at the bottom of their
trouble — just in this case, where
Keeluk was one of Rakkeed’s fol-
lowers.

His power seemed to be grow-
ing, too. There were rumors that
he had been entertained at the
palace in Keegark, just as he
was usually entertained by the
big shipowning nobles here at
Konkrook; come to think of it,
the last time here, he’d been
guest of the Keegarkan ambas-
sador. He went all over Ullr, cru-
sading, traveling coolie-class in
disguise on Company ships, ac-
cording to their best informa-
tion.

Blount sighed heavily. “This
damned dog business worries
me.”

“Worries me, too,” Harrington
said. “Pm fond of that mutt, and
God only knows what sort of
stuff he’s been getting to eat.”

“I’m a lot more worried about
why Keeluk was hiding him, and

ULLR UPRISING

1 9

why he was willing to murder
the only two Terrans on Kon-
krook who trust him, to prevent
our finding out he had Stalin,”
Blount struck in.

Von Schlichten chain-lit an-
other cigarette and stubbed out
the old one. “Maybe Keeluk
turned him over to Rakkeed to
kill before a congregation of his
followers — killing us in effigy. Or
maybe they figure we worship
Stalin, and getting him would
give them power over us. I wish
I knew a little more about Ullran
psychology.”

“One thing,” Blount said. “It
doesn’t take any Ullran psychol-
ogist to know about eighty per
cent of them hate us poisonous-

ly.”

“Oh, rubbish!” Harrington
blew the exclamation out around
his pipe stem with a gush of
smoke. “A few fanatics hate us,
but nine-tenths of them have
benefitted enormously from us.”
“And hate us more deeply with
each new benefit,” Blount added.
"They resent everything we’ve
done for them.”

“Yes, this spaceport proposi-
tion of King Orgzild of Keegark
looks like it, doesn’t it?” Har-
rington retorted. “He hates us so
much he’s offered us a spaceport
at his city . . .”

“At what cost?” Blount asked.
“He takes the land from some

noble he executes for treason and
gives it to us — together with
forced labor. We furnish every-
thing else. We get a port /we
don’t need, and he gets all the
business it’ll bring. In fact, con-
sidering that Rakkeed is a wel-
come guest there, I wonder if he
isn’t fomenting trouble here at
Konkrook to make us move our
main base to Keegark. He’s so
sure we’ll accept already that
he’s started building two new
power-reactors to handle the ad-
ditional demand from increased
business.”

“Where’s he getting the plu-
tonium?” von Schlichten asked,
suspiciously.

“He just bought four tons of
it from us, off the City of Pre-
toria,” Harrington replied.

“A hell of a lot of plutonium,”
Blount said. “I wonder if he has
any idea of what else plutonium
can be used for?”

“Oh, God, I hope not!” Har-,
rington exclaimed. “Bosh! What
about those letters Keeluk gave
the Quinton girl?”

“All addressed to rabidly anti-
Terran Rakkeed disciples,” von
Schlichten replied. “We couldn’t
find any indication of a cipher,
but the gossip about Keeluk’s
friends might have had code-
meanings. I’ll have to advise her
to have nothing to do with any

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

of the people Keeluk gave her let-
ters to.”

“Think she’ll listen to you?
These Extraterrestrial Rights
Association people are a lot of
blasted fanatics, themselves.
They think we’re a gang of
bloody-fisted, flint-hearted impe-
rialists.”

“Oh, they’re not as bad as all
■that. Old Mohammed Ferriera’s
always been decent enough. And
the Association’s really done a
lot of good in other places.”

A calculating look came into
Harrington’s eye. “She was go-
ing to Skilk, eh? And you’re
going there yourself, to investi-
gate some of this Rakkeed worry
of Eric’s. Why not invite her
along, and maybe you can plant
a couple of ideas where they’ll do
the most good. We all know
there are a lot of things at the
polar mines that would look bad
to anybody who didn’t under-
stand. And with all this trouble
being stirred up now . . .”

It was his first admission that
there was trouble, but von
Sehlichten let it pass. “Her com-
pany wouldn’t be any heavy
cross to bear,” he replied.
“I won’t guarantee anything, of
course . .

The intercom-speaker on the
table whistled, and Harrington
flipped a switch and spoke into
• the box. “Governor,” a voice

replied out of it, “there’s a geek
procession just landed from a
water-barge in front, coming up
the roadway to Company House.
A platoon of Jaikark’s Household
Guards with a royal litter, Spear
of State, gift-litter, nobles and
such.”

“Gurgurk -with indemnity for
the riot, eh? Let them in, give
them an honor guard of Kragans,
but kept their own gun-toters
outside. Take them to Reception
Hall until I signal from Audience
Hall, then herd them in.” He
flipped back the switch and
turned back. “We’ll have to let
them wait or they’ll think we’re
worried. But you see — every-
thing’s going along normal
lines.”

Blount nodded, but his face
showed disbelief. And von
Sehlichten grumbled unhappily
to himself, without knowing why,
until they finally went out to the
big Audience Hall to meet the
delegation.

Governor-General Sidney Har-
rington, on the comfortably-up-
holstered bench on the dais of
the Audience Hall, didn’t look
particularly regal. But then, to a
Terran, any of the kings of Ullr
would have looked like a freak
birth in a lizard-house at a zoo ;
it was hard to guess what im-
pression Harrington would make

ULLR UPRISING

on t-he Ullran psychology.

He took the false palate and
tongue-clicker, officially desig-
nated as an “enunciator, Ullran”
and, colloquially, as a geek-
speaker, out of his coat pocket
and shoved -it into his mouth.
Von Schlichten and Blount put
in theirs, and Harrington pressed
the floor-button with his toe.
After a brief interval, the wide
doors at the other end of the
hall slid open, and the Kon-
krookan notables, attended by
a dozen Company native-offi-
cers and a guard of Kragan
Rifles, entered. The honor-guard
advanced in two columns ; be-
tween them marched an unclad
and heavily armed native carry-
ing an ornate spear with a three-
foot blade upright in front of
him with all four hands. It was
the Konkrookan Spear of State;
it represented the proxy-presence
of King Jaikark. Behind it
stalked Gurkurk, the Konkrookan
equivalent of Prime Minister or
Grand Vizier; he wore a gold
helmet and a thing like a string-
vest made of gold wire, and car-
ried a long sword with a two-
hand grip, a pair of Terran auto-
matics built for a hand with six-
four-knuckled fingers, and a pair
of matched daggers. He was con-
siderably past the Ullran prime
of life — seventy or eighty, to
judge from the worn appearance

of his opal -teeth, the color of his
skin, and the predominantly red-
dish tint of his quartz-speckles.
The retinue of nobles behind
Gurgurk ran through the whole
spectrum, from a princeling who
was almost oyster-gray to the
Keegarkan Ambassador, who was
even blacker and more red-
speckled than Gurgurk.

Four slaves brought up in the
rear, carrying an ornately inlaid
box on poles. When the spear-
bearer reached the exact middle
of the hall, he halted and ground-
ed his regalia-weapon with a
thump. Gurgurk came up and
halted a couple of paces behind
and to the left of the spear, and
most of the other nobles drew
up in two curved lines some ten
paces to the rear; the ambassa-
dor and another noble came up
and planted themselves beside
Gurgurk.

The Governor-General rose
slowly and descended from the
dais, advancing to within ten
paces of the Spear, von Schlich-
ten and Blount accompanying
him.

“Welcome, Gurgurk,” Har-
rington gibbered through his
false palate. “The Company is
honored by this visit.”

“I come in the name of my
4'oyal master, His Sublime and
Ineffable Majesty, Jaikark the

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

Seventeenth, King of Konkrook
and of all the lands of the Konk
Isthmus,” Gurgurk squeaked and
clicked. “I have the honor to
bring with me the Lord Ambas-
sador of King Orgzild of Kee-
gark to the court of my royal
master.”

“And I,” the ambassador said,
after being suitably welcomed,
"am honored to be accompanied
by Prince Gorkrink, special en-
voy from my master. His Royal
and Imperial Majesty King Org-
zild, who is in your city to re-
ceive the shipment of power-
metal my royal master has been
honored to be permitted to pur-
chase from the Company.”

More protocol about welcom-
ing Gorkrink. Then Gurgurk
cleared his throat with a series
of barking sounds.

"My royal master, His Sublime
and Ineffable Majesty, is pros-
trated with grief,” he stated sol-
emly. “Were his sorrow not so
overwhelming, he would have
come in His Own Sacred Person
to express the pain and shame
which he feels that people of the
Company should be set upon and
endangered in the streets of the
royal city.”

“The soldiers of His Sublime
and Ineffable Majesty came most
pfompTy to the aid of the troops
of Ih' Company, did they not,
General von Schlichten?” Har-

rington asked, solemn-faced.

“Within minutes, Your Excel-
lency,” von Schlichten replied
gravely. “Their promptness, val-
or and efficiency were most ex-
emplary.”

Gurgurk spoke at length, ex-
pressing himself as delighted, on
behalf of his royal master, at
hearing such high praise from so
distinguished a soldier. Eric
Blount contributed a short
speech, beseeching the gods that
the deep and beautiful friend-
ship existing between the Char-
tered Ullr Company and His Sub-
lime etcetera would continued
unimpaired. The Keegarken Am-
bassador spoke his piece, ex-
pressing on behalf of King Org-
zild the deepest regret that the
people of the Company should be
so molested, and managing to
hint that things like that simply
didn’t happen at Keegark.

The Prince Gorkrink then
spoke briefly, in sympathy. Von
Schlichten noticed that a few of
his more recent quartz-specks
were slightly greenish in tinge,
a sure sign that he had, not long
ago, been exposed to the flu-
orine-tainted air which men and
geeks alike breathed on Niflheim.
When a geek prince hired out as
a laborer for a year on Niflheim,
he did so for only one purpose —
to learn Terran technologies.

ULLR UPRISING

Gurgurk then announced that
so enormous a crime against the
friends of His Sublime etcetera
had not been allowed to go un-
punished, signalling behind him
with one of his lower hands for
the box to be brought forward.
The slaves carried it to the front,
set it down, and opened it, taking
from it a rug which they spread
on the floor. On this, from the
box, they placed twenty-four
newly severed opal-grinning
heads, in four neat rows. They
had all been freshly scrubbed
and polished, but they still
smelled like crushed cockroaches.

The three Terrans looked at
them gravely. A double-dozen
heads was standard payment for
an attack in which no Terran had
been killed. Ostensibly, they were
the heads of the ringleaders; in
practice, they were usually
lopped from the first two-dozen
prisoners or overage slaves at
hand, without regard for wheth-
er the victims had ever heard of
the crime they were expiating.

There was another long speech
from Gurgurk, with the nobles
behind him murmuring anti-
ihonal agreement — standard pro-
cedure, for which there was a
standard pun, geek chorus — and
a speech of response from Sid
Harrington. Standing stiffly
through the whole rigamarole,
von Schlichten waited for it to

end, as, finally, it did.

They walked back from the
door, whence they had escorted
the delegation, and stood looking
down at the saurian heads on
the rug. Harrington raised his
voice and called to a Kragan ser-
geant whose chevrons were
painted on all four arms.

“Take this carrion out and
stuff it in the incinerator,” he
ordered.

“Wait a minute,” von Schlich-
ten told the sergeant. Then he
disgorged and pouched his geek-
speaker. “See that head, there?”
he asked, rolling it over with his
toe. “I killed that geek, myself,
with my pistol. And Hid O’Leary
stuck a knife in that one.” He
walked around the rug, turning
heads over with his foot. “This
was a cut-rate head-payment ;
they just slashed off two-dozen
heads at the scene of the riot. Six
months ago, Gurgurk wouldn’t
have tried to pull anything like
this. Now he’s laughing up his
non-existent sleeve at us.”

“That’s what I’ve been preach-
ing, all along,” Eric Blount took
up after him. “These geeks need
having the fear of Terra thrown
into them.”

“Oh, nonsense, Eric; you’re
just as bad as Carlos, here!”
Harrington tut-tuted. “Next,
you’ll be saying that we ought to

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

depose Jaikark and take control
ourselves.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that,
for an idea?” von Schlichten de-
manded.

“My God!” Harrington ex-
ploded. “Don’t let me hear that
kind of talk again! We’re not
conquistador es ; we’re employees
of a business concern, here to
make money honestly, by ex-
changing goods and services with
these people . . .”

He turned and walked away,
out of the Audience Hall, leaving
von Schlichten and Blount to
watch the removal of the geek-
heads.

“You know, I went a little too
far,”" von Schlichten confessed.
“Or too fast, rather.”

“We can’t go too slowly,
though,” Blount replied.

Von Schlichten nodded seri-
ously. “Did you notice the green
specks in the hide of that Prince
Gorkrink?” he asked. “He’s just
come back from Niflheim. Prob-
ably on the Canberra, three
months ago.”

“And he’s here to get that plu-
tonium, and ship it to Keegark
on the Oom Paul Kruger,” Blount
considered. “I wonder just what
he learned, on Niflheim.” '

“I wonder just what’s going
on at Keegark,” von Schlichten
said. “Orgzild’s pulled down a

regular First-Century-model iron
curtain. You know, four of our
best native Intelligence opera-
tives have been murdered in Kee-
gark in the last three months,
and six more have just vanished
there.”

“Well, I’m going there in a few
days, myself, to talk to. Orgzild
about this spaceport deal,”
Blount said. “I’ll have- a talk
with Hendik Lemoyne and Colo-
nel MacKinnon. And I’ll see what
I can find out for myself.”

“Well, let’s go have a drink,”
von Schlichten suggested.

But he kept remembering the
falsehood of Gurgurk’s indem-
nity. When the Ullrans started
making a mockery of such things,
it was no time for Harrington’s
trusting policies. The smell of
trouble was suddenly stronger in
his nostrils. “

Von Schlichten and Bount en-
tered the bar together. Going to
a bartending machine, von
Schlichten dialed the cocktail
they had decided upon and in-
serted his key to charge the
drinks to his account, filling a
four-portion jug.

As they turned. away, they al-
most collided with Hideyoshi
O’Leary and Paula Quinton. The
girl wore a long-sleeved gown to

ULLR UPRISING

conceal a bandage on her right
wrist, and her face was rather
heavily powdered in spots ; other-
wise she looked none the worse
for recent experiences. Von
Schlichten invited her and her
escort to join hiiq and Blount.
Colonel O’Leary'was carrying a
cocktail jug and a couple of
glasses; finding a table out of
the worst of the noise, they all
sat down together.

“I suppo-se you think it’s a
joke, our being nearly murdered
by the people we came to help,”
Paula began, a trifle defensively.

“Not a very funny joke," von
Schlichten told her. “It’s been
played on us till it’s lost its
humor.”

“Yes, geek ingratitude’s an old
story to all of us,” Blount agreed.
“You stay on this planet very
long and you’ll see what I mean.”
“You call them that, too?” she
asked, as though disappointed in
him. “Maybe if you stopped call-
ing them geeks, they wouldn’t re-
sent you the way they do. You
know, that’s a nasty name; in
the First Century Pre-Atomic,
it designated a degraded person
who performed some sort of re-
volting public exhibition . . .”
“As far as that goes, you know
what the geek name for a Terran
is?” Blount asked. “Suddabit.”
She looked puzzled for a mo-
ment, then slipped in her enun-

ciator. Even in the absence of
any native, she used her hand-
kerchief to mask the act.

“Suddabit,” she said, distinct-
ly. “Sud-da-a-bit.” Taking out
the geek-speaker, she put it
away. “Why, that’s exactly how
they’d pronounce it!”

“And don’t tell me you haven’t
heard it before,” O’Leary said.
“The geeks were screaming it at
you, over on Seventy-second
Street, this afternoon. Znidd
suddabitt; kill the Terrans.
That’s Rakkeed the Prophet’s
whole gospel.”

“So you see,” Eric Blount
rammed home the moral, “this is
just another case of nobody with
any right to call anybody else’s
kettle black . . . Cigarette?”

“Thank you.” She leaned to-
ward the lighter-flame O’Leary
had snapped into being. “I sus-
pect that of being a principle
you’d like me to bear in mind at
the Polar mines, when I see, let’s
say, some laborer being beaten
by a couple of overseers with
three foot lengths of three-quar-
ter-inch steel cable.”

“If you think the natives who
work at the mines feel them-
selves ill-treated, you might pro-
pose closing them down entirely
and see what the native reaction
would be,” von Schlichten told
her. “Independently-hired free

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

workers can make themselves
rich, by native standards, in a
couple of seasons ; many of the
serfs pick up enough money from
us in incentive-pay to buy their
freedom after one season.”
“Well, if the Company’s doing
so much good on this planet, how
is it that this native, Rakkeed,
the one you call the Mad Prophet,
is able to find such a following?”
Paula demanded. “There must be
something wrong somewhere.”
“That’s a fair, question,”
Blount replied, inverting a cock-
tail jug over his glass to extract
the last few drops. “When we
came to Ullr, we found a culture
roughly like that of Europe dur-
ing the Seventh Century Pre-
Atomic. We initiated a techno-
logical and economic revolution
here, and such revolutions have
their casualties, too. A number
of classes and groups got
squeezed pretty badly, like the
horse-breeders and harness-man-
ufacturers on Terra by the in-
vention of the automobile, or the
coal and hydroelectric interests
when direct conversion of nu-
clear energy to electric current
was developed, or the railroads
and steamship lines at the time
of the discovery of the contra-
gravity-field. Naturally, there’s a
lot of ill-feeling on the part of
merchants and artisans who
weren't able or willing to adapt

themselves to changing condi-
tions; they’re all backing Rak-
keed and yelling ‘Znicld sudda-
bit!’ now. But it is a fact, which
not even Rakkeed can success-
fully deny, that we’ve raised the
general living standard of this
planet by about two hundred per
cent.”

Both jugs were empty. Colonel
O’Leary, as befitted his junior
rank, picked them up; after a
good-natured wrangled with von
Schlichten, Blount handed the
colonel his credit-key.

“The -merchants in the North
don’t like us; beside spoiling the
caravan-trade, we’re spoiling
their local business, because the
landowning barons, who used to
deal with them, are now dealing
directly with us. At Skilk, King
Firkked’s afraid his feudal no-
bility is going to force a Runny-
mede on him, so he’s been curry-
ing favor with the urban mer-
chants; that makes him as pro-
Rakkeed and as anti-Terran as
they are. At Krink, King Jonk-
vank has the support of his
barons, but he’s afraid of his ur-
ban bourgeoisie, and we pay him
a handsome subsidy, so he’s pro-
Terran and anti-Rakkeed. At
Skilk, Rakkeed comes and goes
openly; at Krink he has a price
on his head.”

“Jonkvank is not one of the

ULLR UPRISING

assets we boast about too loud-
ly,” Hideyoshi O’Leary said,
pausing on his way from the
table. “He’s as bloody-minded an
old murderer as you’d care not
to meet* in a dark alley.”

“We can turn our backs on
him and not expect a knife be-
tween our shoulders, anyhow,”'
von Schlichten said. “And we
can believe, oh, up to eighty per
cent of what he tells us, and
that’s -sixty per cent better than
any of the other native princes,
except King Kankad, of course.
The Kragans are the only real
friends we have on this planet.”
He thought for a moment. “Miss
Quinton, are you doing socio-
graphic research-work here, in
addition to your Ex-Rights
work?” he asked. “Well, let me
advise you to pay some attention
to the Kragans.”

“Oh, but they’re just a para-
site-race on the Terrans,” Dr.
Paula Quinton objected. “You
find races like that all through
the explored Galaxy — pathetic
cultural mongrels.”

Both men laughed heartily.
Colonel O’Leary, returning with
the jugs, wanted to know what
he’d missed. Blount told him.

“Ha! She’s been reading that
thing of Stanley-Browne’s,” he
said.

“What’s the matter with Stan-
ley-Browne?” Paula demanded.

“Stanley-Browne is one author
you can depend on,” O’Leary as-
sured her. “If you read it in
Stanley-Browne, it’s wrong. You
know, I don’t think she’s run into
many Kragans. We ought to take
her over and introduce her to
King Kankad.”

Von Schlichten allowed him-
self to be smitten by an idea.
“By Allah, so we had!” he ex-
claimed. “Look, you’re going to
Skilk, in the next week, aren’t
you? Well, do you think you
could get all your end-jobs
cleared up here and be ready to
leave by 0800 Tuesday? That’s
four days from today.”

“I’m sure I could. Why?”

“Well, I’m going to Skilk, my-
self, with the armed troopship
Aldebaran. We’re stopping at
King Kankad’s Town to pick up a
battalion of Kragan Rifles for
duty at the Polar mines, where
you’re going. Suppose we leave
here in my command-car, go to
Kankad’s Town, and wait there
till the Aldebaran gets in. That
would give us about two to three
hours. If you think the Kragans
are ‘pathetic cultural mongrels’,
what you’ll see there will open
your eyes. And I might add that
the nearest Stanley-Browne ever
came to seeing Kankad’s Town
was from the air, once, at a dis-
tance of more than four miles.”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

“Well, general, I’ll take you
up,” she said. “But I warn you;
if this is some scheme to indoc-
trinate me with the Ullr Com-
pany’s side of the case and blind
me to unjust exploitation of the
natives here, I don’t propagan-
dize very easily."

“Fair enough, as long as you
don’t let fear of being propagan-
dized blind you to the good we’re
doing here, or impair your abil-
ity to observe and draw accurate
conclusions. Just stay scientific
about it and I’ll be satisfied.
Now, let’s take time out for lu-
brication,” he said, filling her
glass and passing the jug.

Two hours and five cocktails
later, they were still at the table,
and they had taught Paula Quin-
ton some twenty verses of The
Heathen Geeks, They Wear No
Breelcs, including the four print-
able ones.

Four days later they stood to-
gether as the aircar passed over
the Kraggork Swamps — pleas-
antly close together, von Schlic-h-
ten realized. For the moment,' he
could almost forget the queer,
intangible tension that had been
growing steadily, and the feeling
that things were nearing a
breaking point of some kind.

Von Schlichten was scanning
the horizon ahead. He pulled over
a pair of fifty-power binoculars

on a swinging arm and put them
where she could use them.

“Right ahead, there; just a
little to the left. See that brown-
gray spot on the landward edge
of the swamp? That’s King Kan-
kad’s Town. It’s been there for
thousands of years, and it’s al-
ways been Kankad’s Town. You
might say, even The same Kan-
kad. The Kragan kings have al-
ways provided their own heirs,
by self-fertilization. The off-
spring is an exact duplicate of
the single parent. The present
Kankad speaks of his heir as
‘Little Me,’ which is a fairly ac-
curate way of putting it.”

He knew what she was seeing
through the glasses — a massive
butte of flint, jutting out into the
swamp on the end of a sharp
ridge, with a city on top of it.
All the buildings were multi-
storried, some piling upward
from the top and .some clinging
to the sides. The high watch-
tower at the front now carried a
telecast-director, aimed at an
automatic relay-station on an un-
manned orbiter two thousand
miles off-planet.

“They’re either swamp-people
who moved up onto that rock, or
they’re mountaineers who came
out that far along the ridges and
stopped,” she said. “Which?”

“Nobody’s ever tried to find
out. Maybe if you stay on Uller

ULLR UPRISING

long enough, you can. That ought
to be good for about eight to ten
honorary doctorates. And maybe
a hundred sols a year in book
royalties.”

“Maybe I’ll just do that, gen-
eral . . . What’s that, on the little
island over there?” she asked,
shifting the glasses. “A clump of
flat-roofed buildings. Under a
red-and-yellow danger-flag.”

“That’s Dynamite Island; the
Kragans have an explosives-plant
there. They make nitroglycerine,
like all the thalassic peoples ;
they also make TNT and pro-
pellants. Learned that from us,
of course. They also manufacture
most of their own firearms, some
of - them pretty extreme — up to
25-mm. for shoulder rifles. Don’t
ever fire one; it’d break every
bone in your body.”

“Are they that much stronger
than us?”

He shook his head. “Just dens-
er; heavier. They’re about equal
to us in weight-lifting. They
can’t run, or jump, as well as we
can. We often come out here for
games with the Kragans, where
the geeks can’t watch us. And
that reminds me — you’re right
about that being a term of dero-
gation, because I don’t believe
I’ve ever knowingly spoken of a
Kragan as a geek, and in fact
they’ve picked up the word from
us and apply it to all non-Kra-

gans. But as I was saying, our
baseball team has to give theirs
a handicap, but their football
team can beat the daylights out
of ours. In a tug-of-war, we have
to put two men on our end for
every one of theirs. But they
don’t even try to play tennis with
us.”

“Don’t the other natives make
their own firearms?”

“No, and we’re not going to
teach them how!”

The airqpr came in, circling
slowly over the town on the big
rock, and let down on the roof of
the castle-like building from
which the watchtower rose.
There were a dozen or so indi-
viduals waiting for them — the
five Terrans, three men and two
women, from the telecast station,
and the rest Kragans. One of
these, dark-skinned but with
speckles no darker than light
amber, armed only with a heavy
dagger, came over and clapped
von Schlichten on the shoulder,
grinning opalescently.

“Greetings, Von!” he squawk-
ed in Kragan, then, seeing
Paula, switched over to the cus-
tomary language of the Takkad
Sea country. “It makes happiness
to see you. How long will you
stay with us?”

“Till the Aldebarcm gets in
from Konki-ook, to pick up the

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

Rifles,” von Sehlichten replied,
in Lingua Terra. He looked at
his watch. “Two -hours and a
half . . . Kankad, this is Paula
Quinton; Paula, King Kankad.”

He took out his geek-speaker
and crammed it into his mouth.
Before any other race on Ullr,
that would have been the most
shocking sort of bad manners,
without the token-concealment
of the handkerchief. Kankad
took it as a matter of course. At
some length, von Sc'hlichten ex-
plained the nature of Paula’s
sociographic work, her connec-
tion with the Extraterrestrials’
Rights Association, and her in-
tention of going to the Arctic
mines. Kankad nodded.

"You were right,” he said. “I
wouldn’t have understood all
that in your language. If I had
read it, maybe, but not if I
heard it.” He put his upper right
hand on Paula’s shoulder and
uttered a clicking approximation
of iher name. He turned and in-
troduced another Kragan, about
his own age, who wore the equip-
ment and insigna of a Company
native-major and was freshly
painted with the Company em-
blem. “This is Kormork. He and
I have borne young to each
other. Kormork, you watch over
Paula Quinton.” He managed, on
the second try, to make it more
or less recognizable. “Bring her

back safe. Or else find yourself
a good place to hide.”

Kankad introduced the rest of
his people, and von Sehlichten
introduced the Terrans from the
telecast-station. Then Kankad
looked at the watch he was wear-
ing on his lower left wrist.

“We will have plenty of time,
before the ship comes, to show
Paula the town,” he suggested.
“Von, you know better than I do
what she would like to see.”

He led the way past, a pair of
long 90-mm. guns to a stone
stairway. Von Sehlichten ex-
plained, as they went down, that
the guns of King Kankad’s town
were the only artillery above
75-mm. on Ullr in non-Terran
hands. They climbed into an
open machine-gun carrier and
strapped themselves to their
seats, and for two hours King
Kankad showed her the sights
of the town. They visited the
school, where young Kragans
were being taught to read Lin-
gua Terra and studied from text-
books printed in Johannesburg
and Sydney and Buenos Aires.
Kankad showed her the repair-
shops, where two-score descend-
ants of Kragan river-chieftains
were working on contragravity
equipment, under the supervi-
sion of a Scottish- Afrikander
and his Malay-Portugues wife;

ULLR UPRISING

the small-arms factory, where
very respectable copies of Terran
rifles and pistols and auto-weap-
ons were being turned out; the
machine-shop ; the physics and
chemistry labs ; the hospital ; the
ammunition-loading plant; the
battery of 155-mm\ Long- Toms,
built in Kankad’s own shops,
which covered the road- up the
sloping. rock--spine behind the
city ; the prin'ting-shop and boak-
bindery; the observatory, with a
big telescope and an ingenious
orrery of the' Beta Hydrae sys-
tem; the nuclear-power plant,
part of the original price for
giving up brigandage.

Half an hour before the ship
from Konkrook was due, they
had arrived at the airport, where
a gang of Kragans were clearing
a berth for the Aldebaran. From
somewhere, Kankad produced
two cold bottles of Cape Town
beer for Paula and von Schlich-
ten, and a bowl of some boiling-
hot black liquid for himself. Von
Schlichten and Paula lit ciga-
rettes; between sips of his bub-
bling hell brew, Kankad gnawed
on the stalk of some swamp-
plant. Paula seemed as much
surprised at Kankad’s disregard
for the eating taboo as she had
been at von Schlichten’s open
flouting of the convention of con-
cealment when he had put in his
geek-speaker.

“This is the only place on Ullr
where this happens,” von
Schlichten told her. “Here, or in
the field when Terran and Kra-
gan soldiers are together. There
aren’t any taboos between us
and the Kragans.”

“No,” Kankad said. “We can-
not eat each others’ food, and
because our bodies are different,
we cannot be' the fathers of each
others’ young. But we have been
battle-comrades, and work-shar-
ers, and we have learned from
each other, my people more from
yours than yours from mine. Be-
fore you came, my people were
like children, shooting arrows at
little animals on the beach, and
climbing among the rocks at
dare-me-and-I-do, and playing
war with toy weapons. But we
are growing up, and it will not
'be long before we will stand be-
side you, -as the grown son stands
beside his parent, and when that
day comes, you will not be
ashamed of us.”

It was easy to forget that Kan-
kad had four arms and a rub-
bery, quartz-speckled skin, and a
face like a lizard’s.

“I want Little Me, when he’s
old enough to travel, to visit your
world,” Kankad said. “And some
of the other young ones. And
when Little Me is old enough to
take over the rule of our people,

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

I would like to go to Terra, my-
self.”

“You’re going,” von Schlichten
assured him. “Some day, when I
return, I’ll see that you make
the trip with me.”

“W-onderful, Von!” Kankad
was silent for a moment. When
he spoke again, it was in Kra-
gan, and quickly. “If we live so
long, old friend. There is trouble
coming, though even my spies
cannot find what that trouble is.
And two days ago in Keegark,
two of my people died trying to
learn it. I ask you — he careful!”

Then he switched hastily back
to the language Paula could un-
derstand, apologizing. It gave
von Schlichten time to wipe the
worry from his face before she
turned back to him, though it
was worse news than he had ex-
pected. If Kankad thought things
were bad enough to add his own
.spies to those of the Company,
things couldn’t be much worse.
In fact, anything that brought
whatever it was out into the open
would be better.

He was still fretting over it as
they said their good-byes to
Kankad and boarded the Alde-
ba.ran for Skilk.

The last clatter of silverware
and dishes ceased as the native

servants finished clearing the
table. There was a remaining
clatter of cups and saucers ; li-
queur-glasses tinkled, and an
occasional cigarette-lighter click-
ed. At the head table, the voices
seemed louder.

“. . . don’t like it a millisol’s
worth,” Brigadier-General Bar-
ney Mordkovitz, the Skilk mili-
tary CO, was saying to the lady
on his right. “They’re too con-
founded meek. Nowadays, nobody
yells ‘Znidd suddnbit!’ at you.
They just stand and look at you
like a farmer looking at a turkey
the week before Christmas, and
that I don’t like!”

“Oh, bosh!” Jules Keaveney,
the Skilk Resident-Agent, at the
head of the table, exclaimed. “If
they don’t bow and scrape to you
and get off the sidewalk to let
you pass, you say they’re insolent
and need a lesson. If they do, you
say they’re plotting insurrec-
tion.”

“What I said,” Mordkovitz re-
peated, “was that I expect a cer-
tain amount of disorder, and a
certain minimum show of hos-
tility toward us from some of
these geeks, to conform to what
I know to be our unpopularity
with many of them. When I
don’t find it, I want to know
why.”

“I’m inclined,” von Schlichten
came to his subordinate’s sup-

ULLR UPRISING

port, “to agree. This sudden ab-
sence of overt hostility is dis-
quieting. Colonel Cheng-Li,” he
called on the local Intelligence
officer and Constabulary chief.
“This fellow Rakkeed was here,
about a month ago. Was there
any noticeable disorder at that
time ? Anti-Terran demonstra-
tions, attacks on Company prop-
erty or personnel, shooting at
aircars, that sort of thing?”

“No more than usual, general.
In fact, it was when Rakkeed
came here that the condition
General Mordkovitz was speak-
ing of began to become con-
spicuous.”

Von Schlichten nodded. "And
I might say that Lieutenant-
Governor Blount has reported
from Keegark, where he is now,
that the same unnatural absence
of hostility exists there.”

“Well, of course, general,”
Keaveney said patronizingly,
"King Orgzild has things under
pretty tight control at Keegark.
He’d not allow a few fanatics to
do anything to prejudice these
spaceport negotiations.”

“I wonder if the idea back of
that spaceport proposition isn’t
to get us concentrated at Kee-
gark, where Orgzild could wipe
us all out in one surprise blow,”
somebody down the table sug-
gested, and others nodded.

“Oh, Orgzild wouldn’t be crazy
enough to try anything like
that,” Commander Dirk Prinsloo,
of the Aldebaran, declared. "He’d
get away with it for just twelve
months — the time it would take
to get the news to Terra and for
a Federation Space Navy task-
force to get here. And then,
there’d be little bits of radioac-
tive geek floating around this
system as far out as the orbit of
Beta Hydrae VII.”

"That’s quite true,” von
Schlichten agreed. "The point is,
does Orgzild know it? I doubt if
he even believes there is a
Terra.”

“Then where in Space does he
think we come from ?’’ Keaveney
demanded.

“I believe he thinks Niflheim is
our home world,” von Schlichten
replied. "Or, rather, the string
of orbiters and artificial satel-
ites around Niflheim. Where he
thinks Niflheim is, I wouldn’t
even try to guess.”

"Yes. After he’d wiped us out,
he might even consider the idea
of an invasion of Niflheim with
captured contragravity ships,”
Hideyoshi O’Leary chuckled.
“That would be a big laugh — if
any of us were alive, then, to do
any laughing.”

“You don’t really believe that,
general?” Keaveney asked. His
tone was still derisive, but under

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

the derision was uncertainty.
After all, von Schlichten had
ibeen on Ullr for fifteen years, to
his two.

“Any question of geek psychol-
ogy is wide open as far as I’m
concerned; the longer I stay
here, the less I understand it.”
Von Schlichten finished his
brandy and got out cigarette-case
and lighter. “I have an idea of
the sort of garbled reports these
spies of his who spend a year on
Niflheim as laborers bring back.”

(

“You know the line Rakkeed’s
been taking, of course,” Colonel
Cheng-Li put in. “He as much as
says that Niflheim’s our home,
and that the farms where we
raise food, here, and those ever-
green plantings on Konk Isthmus
and between here and Grank are
the beginning of an attempt to
drive all native life from this
planet and make it over for our-
selves.”

“And that savage didn’t think
an idea like that up for himself;
he got it from somebody like
Orgzild,” the black-bearded brig-
adier-general added. “You know,
the main base off Niflheim is
practically self-supporting, with
hyproponic-gardens and animal-
tissue culture vats. And it’s
enough bigger than one of the
City ships to pass for a little
world. Yes; somebody like Org-

zild, or King Firkked, here,
could easily pick up the idea that
that’s our home planet.”

“The Company ought to let us
stockpile nuclear weapons here,
just to be on the safe side,” an-
other officer, farther down the
table, said.

“Well, I’m not exactly in favor
of that,” von Schlichten replied.
“It’s the same principle as not
allowing guards who have to go
in among the convicts to carry
firearms. If somebody like Org-
zild got hold of a nuclear bomb,
even a little old First-Century
H-bomb, he could use it for a
model and construct a hundred
like it, with all the plutonium
we’ve been handing out for
power reactors. And there are
too few of us, and we’re concen-
trated in too few places, to last
long if that happened. What this
planet needs, though, is a visit
by a fifty-odd-ship task-force of
the Space Navy, just to show the
geeks what we have back of us.
After a show like that, there’d
be a lot less znidd suddabit
around here.”

“General, I deplore that sort
of talk,” Keaveney said. “I hear
too much of this mailed-fist-and-
rattling-sabre stuff from some of
the junior officers here, without
your giving countenance and en-
couragement to it. We’re here to
earn dividends for the stockhold-

ULLR UPRISING

ers of the Ullr Company, and we
can only do that by gaining the
friendship, respect and confi-
dence of the natives . .

“Mr. Keaveney,” Paula Quin-
ton spoke. “I doubt if even you
would seriously accuse the Ex-
traterrestrials Rights Associa-
tion of favoring what you call a
mailed fist and rattling sabre pol-
icy. We’ve done everything in
our power to help these people,
and if anybody should have their
friendship, we should. Well, only
five days ago, in Konkrook, Mr:
Mohammed Ferriera and I were
attacked by a mob, our native
aircar driver was murdered, and
if it hadn’t been for General von
Schlichten and his soldiers, we’d
have lost our own lives. Mr. Fer-
riera is still hospitalized as a re-
sult of injuries he received. It
seems that General von Schlich-
ten and his Kragans aren’t try-
ing to get friendship and confi-
dence; they’re willing to settle
for respect, in the only way they
can get it — by hitting harder and
quicker than the natives can.”

Somebody down the table —
one of the military, of course-
said, “Hear, hear!” Von Schlich-
ten came as close as a man wear-
ing a monocle can to winking at
Paula. Good girl, he thought;
she’s started playing on the
Army team, and about time!

“Well, of course . . Keav-
eney began. Then he stopped, as
a Terran sergeant came up to
the table and bent over Barney
Mordkovitz’ shoulder, whisper-
ing urgently. The black-bearded
brigadier rose immediately, tak-
ing his belt from the back of his
chair and putting it on. Motion-
ing the sergeant to accompany,
he spoke briefly to Keaveney and
then came around the table to
where von Schlichten sat, the
Resident-Agent accompanying
him.

“Message just came in from
Konkrook, general,” he said soft-
ly. “Governor Harrington’s
dead.”

It took von Schlichten all of
a second to grasp what had been
said. “Good God! When? How?”

“Here’s all we know, sir,” the
sergeant said, giving him a
radioprint slip. “Came in ten
minutes ago.”

It was an all-station priority
telecast. Governor-General Har-
rington had died suddenly, in his
room, at 2210 ; there were no de-
tails. He glanced at his watch ; it
was 2243. Konkrook and Skilk
were in the same time-zone ; that
was fast work. He handed the
slip to Mordkovitz, who gave it
to Keaveney.

“You from the telecast sta-
tion, sergeant?” he asked. “All
right, in that case, let’s go.”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

As he hurried from the ban-
quet-room, he could hear Keav-
eney tapping on his wine-glass.

“Everybody, please! Let me
have your attention! There has
just come in a piece of the most
tragic news . .

A woman captain met him just
inside the door of the big sound-
proofed room of the telecast sta-
tion, next to the Administration
Building.

“We have a wavelength open
to Konkrook, general,” she said.
“In booth three.”

Another girl, a tech-sergeant,
was in the booth ; on the screen
was the image of a third young
woman, a lieutenant, at Kon-
krook station. The sergeant rose
and started to leave the booth.

“Stick around, sergeant,” von
Schlichten told her. “I’ll want
you to take over when I’m
through.” He sat down in front
of the combination visiscreen
and pickup. “Now, lieutenant;
just what happened?” he asked.
“How did he die?”

“We think it was poison, gen-
eral. Genera] M’zangwe has or-
dered autopsy and chemical
analysis. If you can wait about
ten minutes, he’ll be able to talk
to you, himself.”

“Call him. In the meantime,
give me everything you know.”
“Well, at about 2210, the Kra-

gan guard-sergeant on that floor
heard ten pistol-shots, as fast as
they could be fired semi-auto, in
the governor’s room. The door
was locked, but he shot it oif
with his own pistol and went in.
He found Governor Harrington
on the floor, wearing only his
gown, holding an empty pistol.
He was in convulsions, frothing
at the mouth, in horrible pain.
Evidently he’d fired his pistol,
which he kept on his desk, to call
help; all the bullets had gone into
the ceiling. One of the medics
got there in five minutes, just as
he was dying. He’d written his
diary up to noon of today, and
broken off in the middle of a
word. There was a bottle and an
overturned glass on his desk. The
Constabulary got there a few
minutes later, and then Briga-
dier-General M’zangwe took
charge. A white rat, given fif-
teen drops from the whiskey-
bottle, died with the same symp-
toms in about ninety seconds.”

“Who had access to the whis-
key-bottle?”

“A geek servant, who takes
care of the room. He was caught,
an hour earlier, trying to slip
off the island without a pass;
they were holding him at the
guardhouse when Governor Har-
rington died. He’s now being
questioned by the Kragans.”
The girl’s face was bleakly re-

ULLR UPRISING

morseless. “I hope they do
plenty to him!”

“I hope they don’t kill him be-
fore he talks.”

“Wait a moment, general: we
have Genera] M’zangwe, now,”
the girl said. “I’ll switch you
over.”

The screen broke into a kalei-
doscopic jumble o.| color, then
cleared ; the chocolate-brown
face of M’zangwe was looking
out of it.

“I heard what happened, how
they found him, and about that
geek chamber-valet being arrest-
ed,” von Schlichten said. “Did
you get anything out of him?”

“He’s admitted putting poison
in the bottle, but he claims it
was his own idea. But he’s one
of Father Keeluk’s parishioners,
so . . .”

“Keeluk! God damn, so that
was it!” von Schlichten almost
shouted. “Now I know what he
wanted with Stalin, and that
goat, and those rabbits ! Of
course they’d need terrestrial
animals, to hnd out what would
poison a Terran ! Who’s in
charge at Konkrook now?”

“Not much of anybody. La-
viola, the Fiscal Secretary, and
Hans Meyerstein, the Banking
Cartel’s lawyer, and Howlett, the
Personnel Chief, and Buhrmann,
the Commercial Secretary, have

made up a sort of quadrumvirate
and are trying to run things. I
don’t know what would happen
if anything came up sudden-
ly ...” A blue-gray uniformed
arm, with a major’s cuff-braid,
came into the screen, handing a
slip of paper to M’zangwe; he
took it, glanced at it, and swore.
Von Schlichten waited until he
had read it through.

“Well, something has, all
right,” the African said. “Just
got a call from Jaikark’s palace
— a revolt’s broken out, presum-
ably headed by Gurgurk ; House-
hold Guards either mutinied or
wiped out by the mutineers, all
but those twenty Kragan Rifles
we loaned Jaikark. They, andi
about a dozen of Jaikark’s cour-
tiers and their personal retain-
ers, are 'holding the approaches
to the King’s apartments. The
native-lieutenant in charge of
the Kragans just radioed in;
says the situation is desperate.”

“When a Kragan says that, he
means damn near hopeless. Is
this being recorded?” When
M’zangwe nodded, he continued.
“All right. Use the recording for
your authority and take charge.
I’m declaring njartial rule at
Konkrook, as of now, 2258. Tell
Eric Blount what’s happened,
and what you’ve done, as soon as
you can get in touch with him at
Keegark. I’m leaving for Kon-

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

krook at once! I ought to get in
by 0800.

“Now, as to the trouble at the
Palace. Don’t commit more than
one company of Kragans and ten
airjeeps and four combat-cars,
and tell, them to evacuate Jai-
kark and his followers and our
Kragans to Gongonk Island. And
alert your whole force. These
geek palace revolutions are al-
ways synchronized with street-
rioting, and this thing seems to
have been synchronized with Sid
Harrington’s death, too. Get our
Kragans out if you can’t save
anybody else from the Palace, but
sacrificing thirty or forty men
to save twenty is no kind of
business. And keep sending re-
ports ; I can pick them up on my
car radio as I come down.” He
.turned to the girl sergeant.
“Keep on this; there’ll be more
coming in.”

He rose and left the booth. If
we can pull Jaikark’s bacon off
the fire, he was thinking, the
Company can dictate its own
terms to him afterward ; if Jai-
kark’s killed, we'll have Gur-
gurk’s head off for it, and then
take over Konkrook. In either
case, it’ll be a long step toward
getting rid of all these geek des-
pots. And with Eric Blount as
Governor-General . . .

The inner door of the sound-

proofed telecast-room burst open,
three men hurried inside, and it
slammed shut behind them. In
the brief interval, there had
been firing audible from outside.
One of the men had a pistol in
his right hand, and with his left
arm he supported a companion,
whose shoulder was mangled and
dripped blood. The third man
had a burp-gun in his hands. All
were in civilian dress — shorts
and light jackets. The man with
the pistol holstered it and helped
his injured companion into a
chair. The burp-gunner advanced
into the room, looked around,
saw von Schlichten, and ad-
dressed him.

“General! The geeks turned
on us!” he cried. “The Tenth
North Ullr’s mutinied; they’re
running wild all over the place.
They’ve taken their barracks and
supply-buildings, and the lorry-
hangars and the maintenance-
yard; they’re headed this way
in a mob. Some of the Zirk Cav-
alry’s joined them.”

•*' “Have any ammo left for that
burp-gun? Come on, then; let’s
see what it’s like at Company
House,” von Schlichten said.
“Captain Malavez, you know
what to do about defending this
station. Get busy doing it. And
have that girl in booth three tell
Konkrook what’s happened here,
and say that I won’t be coming

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

down, as I planned, just yet.”

He opened the door, and the
rattle of shots outside became
audible again. The civilian with
the burp-gun knew better than
to let a general go out first ;
elbowing von Schlichten out of
the way, he crouched over his
weapon and dashed outside.
Drawing his pistol, von Schlich-
ten followed, pulling the door
shut after him.

Darkness had fallen, while he
had been inside; now the whole
Company Reservation was ablaze
with electric lights. Somebody at
the power-plant had thrown on
the emergency lights. There was
a confused mass of gray-skinned
figures in front of Company
House, reflected light twinkling
on steel over them; from the di-
rection of the native-troops bar-
racks more natives were coming
on the run. On the roof of a
building across the street, two
machine-guns were already fir-
ing into the mob. From up the
street, a hundred-odd saurian-
faced native soldiers were com-
ing at the double, bayonets fixed
and rifles at high port; with
them ran several Terrans. Mo-
tioning his companion to follow,
von Schlichten ran to meet
them, falling in beside a Terran
captain who ran in front.

“What’s the score, captain?”

he asked the panting captain.

“Tenth North Ullr and the
Fifth Cavalry -have mutinied; so
have these rag-tag Auxiliaries.
That mob down there’s part of
them.” He was puffing under the
double effort of running and
talking. “Whole thing blew up
in seconds ; no chance to com-
municate with anybody . .

A Terran woman, in black
slacks and an orange sweater, ran
across the street in front of
them, pursued *by a group of en-
listed “men” of the Tenth North
Ullr Native Infantry, all shriek-
ing “Znidd suddabit!” The fugi-
tive ran into a doorway across
the street; before her pursuers
were aware of their danger, the
Kragans had swept over them.
There was no shooting ; the slim,
cruel-bladed bayonets did the
work. From behind him, as he
ran, von Schlichten could hear
Kragan voices in a new cry:
“Znidd geek! Znidd geek!”

The mob were swarming up
onto the steps and into the semi-
rotunda of the storm-porch.
There was shooting, which told
him that some of the humans
who had been at the banquet
were still alive. He wondered,
half-sick, Jiow many, and
whether they could hold out till
he could clear the doorway, and,
most of all, he found himself
thinking of |Paula Quinton.

ULLR UPRISING

Skidding to a -stop within fifty
yards of the mob, he flung out
his arms crucifix-wise to halt the
Kragans. Behind, he could hear
the Terrans and native-officers
shouting commands to form
front.

“Give them one clip, reload,
and then give them the bay-
onet!” he ordered. “Shove them
off the steps and then clear the
porch !”

The hundred rifles let go all
at once, and for five seconds they
poured a deafening two thou-
sand rounds into the mutineers.
There was some fire in reply; a
Zirk corporal narrowly missed
him with a pistol ; he saw the
captain’s head fly apart when an
explosive rifle-bullet hit him, and
half a dozen Kragans went down.

“Reload! Set your safeties!”
von Schlichten bellowed.
“Charge!”

Under human officers, the
North Ullr Native Infantry
would have stood firm. Even un-
der their native-officers and- ser-
geants, they should not have
broken as they did, but the best
of these had paid for their loy-
alty to the Company with their
lives. At that, the Skilkan peas-
antry who made up the Tenth
Infantry, and the Zirk cavalry-
men, tried briefly to fight as in-
dividuals, shrieking “Znidd sud-

dabit!” until the Kragans were
upon them, stabbing and shoot-
ing. They drove the rioters from
the steps or killed them there,
they wiped out those who had
gotten into the semicircle of the
storm-porch. The inside doors,
von Schlichten saw, were open,
but beyond them were Terrans
and a dozen or so Kragans.
Hideyoshi O’Leary and Barney
Mordkovitz seemed to be in com-
mand of these.

“We had about thirty seconds’
warning,” Mordkovitz reported,
“and the Kragans in the hall
bought us another sixty seconds.
Of course, we all had our pis-
tols . . .”

“Hey! These storm-doors are
wedged!” somebody discovered.
“Those goddam geek ser-
vants . . .!”

“Yeah; kill any of them you
catch,” somebody else advised.
“If we could have gotten these
doors closed . . .”

The mob, driven from the
steps, was trying to re-form and
renew the attack. From up the
street, the machine-guns, silent
during the bayonet-fight, began
hammering again. The mob
surged forward to get out of
their fire, and were met by a
rifle-blast and a hedge of bay-
onets at the steps; they surged
back, and the machine-guns
flailed them again. They Started

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

to rush the building from
whence the automatic-fire came,
and there was a fusilade and a
shriek of “Znidd geek!” from up
the street. They turned and fled
in the direction from whence
they had come, bullets scourging
them from three directions at
once.

For a moment, von Schlichten
and the three Terrans and
eighty-odd Kragans who had
survived the fight stood on the
steps, weapons poised, seeking
more enemies. The machine-guns
up the street stuttered a few
short bursts and were silent.
From behind, the beleaguered
Terrans and their Kragan
guards were emerging. He saw
Jules Keaveney and his Wife;
Commander Prinsloo of the
Aldebaran; Harry Quong and
Bogdanoff . Ah, there she was !
He -heaved a breath of relief and
waved to her.

The Kragans were already set-
ting about their after-battle
chores. A couple of hundred more
Kragans, led by Native-Major
Kormork, the co-parent of young
with King Kankad, came up at
the double and stopped in front
of Company House.

“We were in quarters, aboard
the Aldebaran and in the guest-
house at the airport,” Kormork
reported. “We were attacked,

fifteen minutes ago, by a mob.
We took ten minutes beating
them off, and five more getting
here. I sent Native-Captain
Zeerjeek and' the rest of the
force to re-take the supply-depot
and the shops and lorry hangars,
which had been taken, and re-
lieve the military airport, which
is under attack.”

“Good enough. I hope you
didn’t spread yourself out too
thin. What’s the situation at the
commercial airport?”

“The two ships, the Aldebaran
and the freighter Northern Star,
are both safe,” Kormork replied.
“I saw them go on contragravity
and rise bo about a hundred
feet.”

“Whose Crowd is that you
have?” he asked the Terran lieu-
tenant* who bad taken over com-
mand of the first force of Kra-
gans.

“Company 6, Eighteenth
Rifles, sir. We were on duty at
the guardhouse; fighting broke
oue in .the direction of the na-
tive barracks. A couple of run-
ners from Captain Retief of
Company 4 came in with word
that he was being attacked by
mutineers from the Tenth
N.U.N.I. but that he was hold-
ing them back. So Captain Char-
bonneau, who was killed a few
minutes ago, left a Terran lieu-
tenant and a Kragan native-lieu-

ULLR UPRISING

tenant and a couple of native-
sergenats and thirty Kragans to
hold the guardhouse, and
brought the rest of us here.”

Von Schlichten nodded. “You’d
pass the military airport and the
power-plant, wouldn’t you?” he
asked.

“Yes, sir. The military air-
port’s holding out, and I saw the
red-and-yellow danger-lights on
the fence around the power-
plant.”

That meant the power-plant
was, for the time, safe; some-
body’d turned twenty thousand
volts into the fence.

“All right. I’m setting up my
command post at the telecast sta-
tion, where the communication
equipment is.” He turned to the
crowd that had come out onto
the porch from inside. “Where’s
Colonel Cheng-Li?”

“Here, general.” The Intelli-
gence and Constabulary officer
pushed through the crowd. "I
was on the phone, talking to the
military airport, the commercial
airport, ordnance depot, space-
port, ship-docks and power plant.
All answer. I’m afraid Pop
Goode, at the city power-plant, is
done for; nobody answers there,
but the TV-pickup is still on in
the load-dispatcher’s room, and
the place is full of geeks. Colonel
Jarman’s coming here with a
lorry to get combat-car crews;

he’s short-handed. Port-Captain
Leavitt has all the native labor
at the airport and spaceport
herded into a repair dock; he’s
keeping them covered with the
forward 90-mm. gun of the
Northern Star. Lorry-hangars,
repair-shops and maintenance-
yards don’t answer.”

“That’s what I was going to
ask you. Good enough. Harry
Quong, Hassan Bogdanoff!”

His command-car crew front-
and-eentered.

"I want you to take Colonel
O’Leary up, as soon as my car’s
brought here . . . Hid, you go up
and see •what’s going on. Drop
flares where there isn’t any light.
And take a look at the native-
labor camp and the equipment-
park, south of the reserva-
tion . . . Kormork, yo.u take all
your gang, and half these sol-
diers from the Eighteenth, here,
and help clear the native-troops
barracks. And don’t bother tak-
ing any prisoners; we can’t
spare personnel to guard them.”
Kormork grinned. The taking
of prisoners had always been
one of those irrational Terran
customs which no Ullran regard-
ed with favor, or even compre-
hension.

There was fresh intelligence
from Konkrook, by the time he

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

returned to the telecast station.
Mutiny had broken out there
among the laborers and native
troops, who outnumbered the
Terrans and their Kragan mer-
cenaries on Gongonk Island by
five thousand to five hundred and
fifteen hundred respectively.
The attempt to relieve Jaikark's
palace had been called off before
the relief-force could be sent;
there was heavy and confused
fighting all over the island, and
most of the combat contragrav-
ity and about half the Kragan
Rifles had had to be committed
to defend the Company farms
across the Channel, on the main-
land, south of the city. There
had also been an urgent call for
help from Colonel Rodolfo Mac-
Kinnon, in command of Company
troops at the Keegark Residency.

He called Keegark; a girl, ap-
parently one of the civilian tele-
cast technicians, answered.

“We must have help, General
von Schlichten,” she told him.
“The native troops, all but two
hundred Kragans, have mu-
tinied. They have everything
here except Company House —
docks, airport, everything.
We’re trying to hold out, but
there are thousands of them.”

“What happened to Eric
Blcunt and your Resident-Agent,
Mr. Lemoyne?”

“We don’t know. They were at

the Palace, talking to King Org-
zild. We’ve tried to call the
Palace, but we can’t get through.
General, we must have help . . .”

A call came in, a few minutes
later, from Krink, five hundred
miles to the north-east across the
mountains; the Resident-Agent
there, one Francis Xavier Sha-
piro, reported rioting in the city
and an attempted palace-revolu-
tion against King Jonkvank, and
that the Residency was under at-
tack. By way of variety, it was
the army of King Jonkvank that
had mutinied; the Sixth North
Ullr Native Infantry and the
two companies of Zirk cavalry at,
Krink were still loyal, along with
the Kragans.

There was a pattern to all
this. Von Schlichten stood star-
ing at the big map, on the wall,
showing the Takkad Sea area at
the Equatorial Zone, and the
country north of it to the Pole,
the area of Ullr occupied by the
Company. He was almost begin-
ning to discern the underlying
logic of the past half-hour’s
events when Keaveney, the
Skilk Resident, blundered into
„him in a half-daze.

“Sorry, general; didn’t see
you.” His face was ashen, and
his jowls sagged. “My God, it’s
happening all over Ullr! Why,
it’s the end of all of us!”

ULLR UPRISING

“It’s not quite that bad, Mr.
Keaveney.” He looked at his
watch. It was now nearly an hour
since the native troops here at
Skilk had mutinied. Insurrec-
tions like this usually succeeded
or failed in the first hour. “If
we all do our part, we’ll come out
of it all right,” he told Keaveney,
more cheerfully than he felt,
then turned to ask Brigadier-
General Mordkovitz how the
fighting was going at the native-
troops barracks.

“Not badly, general. Colonel
Jarman’s got some contragravity
up and working. They blew out
all four of the Tenth N.U. N.I.’s
barracks; the Tenth and the
Zirks are trying to defend the
cavalry barracks. Some of our
Kragans managed to slip around
behind the cavalry stables.
They’re leading out hipposaurs,
and sniping at the rear of the
cavalry barracks.”

“That’ll give us some cavalry
of our own ; a lot of these Kra-
gans are good riders . . . How
about the repair-shops and main-
tenance-yard and lorry-hangars?
I don’t want these geeks getting
hold of that equipment and using
it against us.”

“Kormork’s outfit are trying to
take back the lorry-hangars. Jar-
man’s got a couple of airjeeps
and a combat-car helping them.”

“. . . won’t be one of us left by

this time tomorrow,” Keaveney
was wailing, to Paula Quinton
and another woman. “And the
Company is finished!”

Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelli-
gence officer, approached Keav-
eney and tried to quiet him. At
the same time, a woman in black
slacks and an orange sweater —
the one whose pursuers had been
overrun by the Kragans at the
beginning of the fighting — ap-
proached von Schlichten.

“General; King Kankad’s call-
ing,” she said. “He’s on the
screen in booth four.”

Kankad’s face was looking out
of the screen at him, with Phil
Yamazaki, the telecast operator
at Kankad’s Town, standing be-
hind him.

“Von!” The Kragan spoke al-
most as though in physical pain.
“What can I do to help? I have
twenty thousand of my people
here who are capable of bearing
arms, all with firearms, but I
have transport for only five hun-
dred. Where shall I send them?”

Von Schlichten thought quick-
ly. Keegark was finished; the
Residency stood in the middle of
the city, surrounded by two hun-
dred thousand of King Orgzild’s
troops and subjects. Sending
Kankad’s five hundred warriors
and his meager contragravity
there would be the same as

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

shovelling them into a furnace.
The people at Keegark would
have to he written off, like the
twenty Kragans at Jaikark’s
palace.

“Send them to Konkrook,” he
decided. “Them M’zangwe’s in
command, there; he’ll need help
to hold the Company farms. May-
be he can find additional trans-
port for you. I’ll call him.”

“I’ll send off what force I can,
at once,” Kankad promised.
“How does it go with you at
Skilk?”

“We’re holding, so far,” he re-
plied.

Captain Inez Malavez, the
woman officer in charge of the
station, put her head into the
booth.

“General! Immediate-urgency
message from Colonel O’Leary,”
she said. “Native laborers from
the mine-labor camp are pouring
into the mine-equipment park.
Colonel O’Leary’s used all his
roc'kets and mg-ammunition try-
ing to stop them.”

“Call you back, later,” von
Schlichten told Kankad. “I’ll see
what Them M’zan-gwe can do
about transport; get what force
you can started for Konkrook at
once.”

He left the booth. “Barney!”
he called. “General Mordkovitz!
Who’s the ranking officer in di-
rect contact with the Eighteenth

Rifles? Major Falkenberg?”

“That’s eight.”

“Well, tell him to get as many
of his Kragans as he can spare
down to the equipment-park.” He
turned to Inez Malavez. “You call
Jarman; tell him what O’Leary
reported, and tell him to get
cracking on it. Tell him not to
let those geeks get any of that
equipment onto contragravity ;
knock it down as fast as they try
to lift out with it. And tell him
•to see what he can do in the way
of troop-carriers or lorries, to
get Falkenberg’s Rifles to the
equipment-park . . . How’s busi-
ness at the lorry-hangars and
maintenance-yard ?”

“Kormoi«k’s still working on
that,” the girl captain told him.
“Nothing definite, yet.”

In one corner of the big room,
somebody had thumbtacked a
ten-foot-square map of the Com-
pany area to the floor. Paula
Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keav-
eney were on their knees beside
it, pushing out handfuls of little
pink and white pills that some-
body had brought in two bottles
from the dispensary across the
road, each using a billiard-
bridge. The girl in the orange
sweater had a handful of scrib-
bled notes, and was telling them
where to push the pills. There
were other ■objects on the map.

ULLR UPRISING

too — pistol-cartridges, and ciga-
rettes, and foil-wrapped food-
concentrate wafers. Paula, seeing
him, straightened.

“The pink are ours, general,”
she said. “The white are the
geeks.” Von Schlichten sup-
pressed a grin ; that was the
second time he’d heard her use
that word, this evening. “The
cigarettes are airjeeps, the
cartridges are combat-cars, and
the wafers are lorries or troop-
carriers.”

"Not exactly regulation map-
markers, but I’ve seen stranger
things used . . . Captain Mala-
vez ! ”

"Yes, sir?” The girl captain,
rushing past, her hands full of
teleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-
stride.

“What we need,” he told her,
“is a big TV-screen, and a pick-
up mounted on some sort of a
contragravity vehicle at about
two to five thousand feet directly
overhead, to give us an image of
the whole area. Can do?”

“Can try, sir. We have an
eight-foot circular screen that
ought to do all right for two
thousand feet. I’ll implement
that at once.”

Going into a temporarily idle
telecast booth, he called Kon-
krook, and finally got Themi-
stocles M’zangwe on the screen.

“How is it, now?” he asked.

“Getting a little better,” the
Graeco-African replied. “Half an
hour ago, we were shooting geeks
out the windows, here; now we
have them contained between the
spaceport and the native-troops
and labor barracks, and down the
east side of the island to the
farms. We have the wire around
the farms on the island electri-
fied, and we’re using almost all
our combat contragravity to
keep the farms on the mainland
clear.” He hesitated for a mo-
ment. “Did you hear about Eric
Blount and Lemoyne?”

Von Schlichten shook his head.

“The whole party that were at
Orgzild’s palace were massacred.
Some of them were lucky enough
to get killed fighting. The geeks
took Eric and Hendrik alive;
rolled them in a puddle of ther-
moconcentrate fuel and set fire
to them. When we can spare the
contragravity, we’re going to
drop something on the Kee-geek
embassy, over in town.”

Von Schlichten grimaced, but
he’d expected something hike it.
He told M’zangwe about King
Kankad’s offer. "His crowd
ought to be coming in in a couple
of hours. What can you scrape
up to send to Kankad’s Town to
airlift Kragans in?”

“Well, we have three hundred-
and-fifty-foot gun-cutters, one

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

90-mm. apiece. The Elmoran, the
Gauclio, and the Bushranger.
But they’re not much as trans-
ports, and we need them here
pretty badly. Then, we have five
fertilizer and charcoal scows,
and a lot of heavy transport lor-
ries, and two one-eighty-foot
pickup boats.”

“How about the Piet Jov-
bert?” von Schlichten asked.
“She was due in Konkrook from
the east about 1300 today, wasn’t
she ?”

M’zangwe swore. “She got in,
all right. But the geeks boarded
her at the dock, within twenty
minutes after things started.
They tried to lift out with her,
and the Channel Battery shot heir
down into Konkrook Channel, off
the Fifty-sixth Street docks.”

“Well, you couldn’t let the
geeks have her, to use against
us. What do you hear from the
other ships?”

“Procyon’s at Grank ; we
haven’t had any reports of any
kind from there, which doesn’t
look so good. The Northern
Lights is at Grank, too. The Oom
Paul Kruger should have been
at Bwork, in the east, when the
gun went off. And the Jan Smuts
and the Christiaan De Wett
were both at Keegark; we can
assume Orgzild has both of
them.”

“All right. I’m sending Alcle-

baran to Kankad’s, to pick -up
more reenforcements for you.”

Leaving the booth, the heard,
above the clatter of communica-
tions-machines and the hubbub
of voices, Jules Keaveney argu-
ing contentiously. Evidently
Colonel Cheng-Li’s efforts to
drag the Resident out of his des-
pondency had been an excessive
success.

“But it’s crazy! Not just here;
everywhere on Ullr!” Keaveney
was saying. “How did they do
it? They have no telecast equip-
ment.”

“You have me stopped, Jules,”
Mordkovitz was replying. “I
know a lot of rich geeks have
receiving sets, but no sending
sets.”

The pattern that had been tan-
talizing von Schlichten took vis-
ible shape in his mind. For a
moment, he shelved the matter
of the Aldebaran.

“They didn’t need sending
equipment, Barney,” he said.
“They used ours. Sid Harring-
ton was poisoned in Konkrook.
The news, of course, was sent
out at once, as the geeks knew
it would be, to every residency
and trading-station on Ullr, and
that was the signal they’d agreed
upon, probably months in ad-
vance 1”

“Well, what was our Intelli-

ULLR UPRISING

gence doing; sleeping?” Keav-
eney demanded angrily.

“No; they were writing re-
ports for your civil administra-
tion blokes to stuff in the waste-
basket, and being called mailed-
fist-nnd-rattling-sabre alarmists
for their pains.” He turned away
from Keaveney. “Barney, where
is Dirk Prinsloo?”

“Aboard his ship. He hitched
a ride to the airport with Jar-
man, when he was here picking
up air-crews.”

“Call him. Tell him to take the
Aldebnran to Kankad’s Town, at
once ; as soon as he arrives there,
which ought to be about 1100,
he’s to pick up all the Kragans
he can pack aboard and take
them to Konkrook. From then
on, he’ll be under Them M’zang-
we’s orders.”

“To Konkrook?” Keaveney
fairly howled. “Are you nuts?
Don’t you think we need reen-
forcements here, too?”

“Yes, I do. I’m going to try
to get them,” von Schlichten told
him. “Now pipe down and get
out of people’s way.”

He crossed the room, to where
two Kragans, a male sergeant,
and the ubiquitous girl in the
orange sweater were struggling
to get a big circular TV-screen
up, then turned to look at the
situation-map. A girl tech-ser-
geant was keeping Paula Quin-

ton and Mrs. Jules Keaveney in-
formed.

“Start pushing geeks out of
the Fifth Zirk Cavalry bar-
racks,” the sergeant was saying.
“The one at the north end, and
the one next to it; they’re both
on fire, now.” She tossed a slip
into the wastebasket beside her
and glanced at the next slip.
“And more pink pills back of the
barracks and stables, and move
them a little to the north-west ;
Kragans as skirmishers, to in-
tercept geeks trying to slip away
from the cavalry barracks.”

A young Kragan with his
lower left arm in a sling and a
daub of antiseptic plaster over
the back of his head came up
and gave him a radioprint slip.
Guido Karamessinis, the Resi-
dent-Agent at Grank, had report-
ed, at last. The city, he said, was
quiet, but King Yoorkerk’s
troops had seized the Company
airport and docks, taken the
Procyon and the Northern Lights
and put guards aboard them, and
were surrounding the Residency.
He wanted to know what to do.

Von Schlichten managed to get
him on the screen, after awhile.

“It looks as though Yoorkerk’s
trying to play both sides at
once,” he told the Grank Resi-
dent. “If the rebellion’s put
down, he’ll come forward as

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

your friend and protector; if
we’re wiped out elsewhere, he’ll
yell ‘Znidd suddabit!’ and swamp
you. Don’t antagonize him ; we
can’t afford to fight this war on
any more fronts than we are
now. We’ll try to do something
to get you unfrozen, before
long.”

He called Krink again. A girl
with red-gold hair and a dusting
of freckles across her nose an-
swered.

“How are you making out?”
he asked.

“So far, fine, general. We’re
in complete control of the Com-
•pany area, and all our native-
troops, not just the Kragans, are
with us. Jonkvank’s pushed the
mutineers out of his palace, and
we’re keeping open a couple of
streets between there -and here.
We airlifted all our Kragans and
half the Sixth N.U.N.I. to the
Palace, and- we have the Zirks
patrolling the streets on ’saur-
back. Now, we have our lorries
and troop-carriers out picking up
elements of Jonkvank’s loyal
troops outside town.”

“Who’s doing the rioting,
then ?”

She named three of Jonkvank’s
regiments. “And the city hood-
lums, and priests from the tem-
ples of one sect that followed
Rakkeed, and the whole passel
of Skilkan fifth columnists.”

“How long do you think it’d
take, with the equipment you
have, to airlift all of Jonkvank’s
loyal troops into the city?”

“Not before this time tomor-
row.”

“All right. Are. you in radio
communication with Jonkvank
now?”

“Full telecast, audio-visual,”
the girl replied. “Just' a minute,
general.”

He put in his geek-speaker.
Within a few minutes, a saurian
Ullran face was looking out of
it at him ; a harsh-lined, elderly,
face, with an old scar, quartz-
crusted, along one side.

“Your Majesty,” von Schlich-
ten greeted him.

Jonkvank pronounced some-
thing intended to correspond to
von Schlichten’s name. “We have
image-met under sad circum-
stances, general,” he said.

“Sad for both of us, King
Jonkvank; we must help one an-
other. I am told that your sol-
diers in Krink have risen against
you, and that your loyal troops
are far from the city.”

“Yes. That was the work of
my War Minister, Hurkkirk, who
was in the pay of King Firkked
of Skilk, may Jeels devour him
alive! I have Hurkkirk’s head
here somewhere. I can have it
found, if you want to see it.”

ULLR UPRISING

“Dead- traitors’ heads do not
interest me, King Jonkvank,”
von Schlichten replied, in what
he estimated that the Krinkan
king would interpret as a tone
of cold-blooded cruelty. “There
are too many traitors’ heads still
on traitors’ shoulders . . . What
regiments are loyal to you, and
where are they now?”

Jonkvank began naming regi-
ments and locating them, all at
minor provincial towns at least
a hundred miles from Krink.

“Hurkkirk did his work well;
I’m afraid you killed him too
mercifully, ”~von Schlichten said.
“Well, I’m sending the Northern
Star to Krink. She can only bring
in one regiment at a trip, the
way they’re scattered ; which one
do you want first?”

Jonkvank’s mouth, until now
compressed grimly, parted in a
gleaming smile. He made an ex-
clamation of pleasure which
sounded rather like a boy run-
ning along a picket fence with a
stick.

“Good, general! Good!” he
cried. “The first should be the
regiment Murderers, at Furnk;
they all have rifles like your sol-
diers. Have them brought to the
Great Square, at the Palace here.
And then, the regiment Fear-
Makers, at Jeelznidd, and the
regiment Corpse-Reapers, at . . .”
“Let that go until the Murder-

ers are in,” von Schlichten ad-
vised. “They’re at Furnk, you
say? I’ll send the Northern Star
there, directly.”

“Oh, good, general! I will not
soon forget this! And as soon as
the work is finished here, I will
send soldiers to help you at Skilk.
There shall be a great pile of the
heads of those who had part in
this wickedness, both here and
there!”

“Good. Now, if you will par-
don me, I’ll go to give the neces-
sary orders . . .”

As he left the booth, he saw
Hideyoshi O’Leary in front of
the situation-map, and hailed
him.

“Harry and Hassan are get-
ting the car re-ammoed; they
dropped me off here. Want to
come up with us and see the
show?” O’Leary asked, as he saw
the general.

“No, I want you to go to
Krink, as soon as Harry brings
the car here again.” He told
O’Leary what he intended do-
ing. “You’ll probably have to go
around ahead of the Star and
alert these regiments. And as
soon as things stabilize at Krink,
prod Jonkvank into airlifting
troops here. You’re authorized,
in my name, to promise Jonk-
vank that he can assume politi-
cal control at Skilk, after we’ve

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

stuffed Firkked’s head in the
dustbin.”

Jules Keaveney, who always
seemed to be where he wasn’t
wanted, heard that and fairly
screamed.

“General von Schlichten! That
is a political decision! You have
no authority to make promises
like that; that is a matter for.,
the Governor-General, at least!”

“Well, as of now, and until a
successor to Sid Harrington can
be sent here from Terra, I’m
Governor-General,” von Schlich-
ten told him, mentally thanking
Keaveney for reminding him of
the necessity for such a step.
“Captain Malavez! You will send
out an all-station telecast, imme-
diately : Military Commander-in-
Chief Carlos von Schlichten, be-
ing informed of the deaths of
.both Governor-General Harring-
ton and Lieutenant-Governor
Blount, assumes the duties of
Governor-General, as of 0001 to-
day.” He turned to Keaveney.
“Does that satisfy you?” he
asked.

“No, it doesn’t. You have no
authority to assume a civil po-
sition of any sort, let alone the
very highest position . . .”

Von Schlichten unbuttoned
his holster and took out his au-
thority, letting Keaveney look
into the muzzle of it.

“Here it is,” he said. “If

you’re wise, don’t make me ap-
peal to it.”

Keaveney shrugged. “I can’t
argue with that,” he said. “But
I don’t fancy the Ullr Company
is going to be impressed by it.”

“The Ullr Company,” von
Schlichten replied, “is six and a
half parsecs away. It takes a ship
six months to get from here to
Terra, and another six months
to get back. A radio message
takes a little over twenty-one
years, each way.” He bolstered
the pistol again.

“That brings up another ques-
tion, general,” one of Keaveney’s
subordinates said. “Can we hold
out long enough for help to get
here from Terra?”

“By the time help could reach
us from Terra,” von Schlichten
replied, “we’ll either have this
revolt crushed, or there won’t be
a live Terran left on Ullr.” He
felt a brief sadistic pleasure as
he watched Keaveney’s face sag
in horror. “On this planet,
there’s not more than a three
months’ supply of any sort of
food a 'human can eat. And the
ships that’ll be coming in until
word of our plight can get to
Terra won’t bring enough to
keep us going. We need the
farms and livestock and the ani-
mal-tissue culture plant at Kon-
krook, and the farms at Krink
and on the plateau back of Skilk,

ULLR UPRISING

and we need peace and native
labor to work them.”

Nobody seemed to have any-
thing to ‘ say after that, for
awhile. Then Keaveney suggest-
ed that the next ship was due in
from Nifiheim in three months,
and that it could be used to
evacuate all the Terrans on Ullr.

“And I’ll personally shoot any
able-bodied Terran who tries to
board that ship,” von Schlichten
promised. “Get this through
your heads, all of you. We are
going to break this rebellion,
and we are going to hold Ullr
for the Company and the Terran
Federation.” He looked around
him. “Now, get back to work, all
of you,” he told the group that
had formed around him and
Keaveney. “Miss Quinton, you
just heard me order my adjutant,
Colonel O’Leary, on detached
duty to Krink. I want you to take
over for him. You’ll have rank
and authority as colonel for the
duration of this war.”

She. was thunderstruck. “But
I know absolutely nothing about
military matters. There must be
a hundred people here who are
better qualified than I am . .

“There are, and they all have
jobs, and I’d have to find re-
placements for them, and re-
placements for the replacements.
You won’t leave any vacancy to

be filled. And you’ll learn, fast
enough.” He went over to the
situation-map again, and looked
at the arrangements of pink and
white pills. “First of all, I want
you to call Jarman, at the mili-
tary airport, and have an air jeep
and driver sent around here for
me. I’m going up and have a look
around. Barney, keep the' show
going while I’m out, and tell
Colonel Quinton what it’s all
about.”

VII

He looked at his watch, as the
light aii'jeep let down into the
street. Oh-one-fifteen — two hours
and a half since the mutiny at
the native-troops barracks had
broken out. The Company res-
ervation was still ablaze with
lights, and over the roof of the
hospital and dispensary and test-
lab he could see the glare of the
burning barracks. There was
more fire-glare to the south, in
the direction of the mine-equip-
ment park and the mine-labor
camp, and from that direction
the bulk of the firing was to be
heard.

The driver, a young lieuten-
ant, slid back the duraglass can-
opy for him to climb in, then
snapped it into place when he
had strapped himself into his
seat, and hit the controls.

SPACE SCIENCE FICJION

They lifted up, the driver
turning the nose of the airjeep
in the direction of the flames and
explosions and magnesium-
lights to the south and tapping
his booster-button gently. The
vehicle shot forward and came
floating in over the scene of the
fighting. The situation-map at
the improvised headquarters had
shown a mixture of pink and
white pills in the mine-equip-
ment park; something was go-
ingto have to be done about the
lag in correcting it, for the area
was entirely in the hands of
loyal Company troops, and the
mob of laborers and mutinous
soldiers had been pushed back
into the temporary camp where
the workers had been gathered
to await transportation to the
Arctic. As he had feared, the
rioting workers, many of whom
were trained to handle contra-
gravity equipment, had managed
to lift up a number of dump-
trucks and power-shovels and
bulldozers, intending to use them
as improvised air-tanks, but Jar-
man’s combat-cars had gotten on
the job promptly and all of these
had been shot down and were
lying in wreckage, mostly among
the rows of parked mining-equip-
ment.

From the labor-camp, a sur-
prising volume of fire was being

directed against the attack
which had already started from
the retaken equipment-park?

Hovering above the. fighting,
aloof from it, he saw six long
troop-carriers land and disgorge
Kragan Rifles who had been re-
leased by the liquidation of re-
sistance at the native-troops
barracks. A little later, two air-
tanks floated in, and then two
more, going off contragravity
and lumbering forward on
treads to fire their 90-mm. rifles.
At the .same time, combat-cars
swooped in, banging away with
their lighter auto-cannon and
launching rockets. The titanium
prefab-hut's, set up to house the
laborers and intended to be taken
north with them for their stay
on the polar desert, were simply
wiped away. Among the wreck-
age, resistance was -being blown
out like the lights of a candela-
brum.

He took up the handphone and
called HQ.

“Yon Schlichten ; what’s the
wavelength of the officer in com-
mand at the equipment-park?”

A voice at the telecast station
furnished it; he punched it out.

“Yon Schlichten, right over-
head. That you, Major Falken-
berg? Nice going, major; how
are your casualties?”

“Not too bad. Twenty or
thirty Kragans and loyal Skil-

ULLR UPRISING

kans, and eight Terrans killed;
about as many wounded.”

“Pretty good, considering
what you’re running into. Get
many of your Kragans mounted
on those hipposaurs?”

“About a hundred; a lot of
’saurs got shot, while we were
leading them out from the
stables.”

“Well, I can see geeks stream-
ing away from the labor-camp,
out the south end, going in the
direction of the river. Use what
cavalry you have on them, and
what eontragravity you can
spare. I’ll drop a few flares to
show their position and direc-
tion.”

Anticipating him, the driver
turned the airjeep and started
toward the dry Hoork River.
Von Schlichten nodded approval
and told him to release flares
when over the fugitives.

“Right,” Falkenberg replied.
“I’ll get on it at once, general.”
“And start moving that mine-
equipment up into the Company
area. Some of it we can put into
the air; the rest we can use to
build barricades. None of it do
we want the geeks getting hold
of, and the equipment-park’s out-
side our practical perimeter. I’ll
send people to help you move it.”
“No need to do that, sir; I
have about a hundred and fifty
loyal North Ullrans — foremen,

technicians, overseers — who can
handle it.”

“All right. Use your own
judgment. Put the stuff back of
the native-troops barracks, and
between the power-plant and the
Company office-buildings, and
anywhere else you can.” The lieu-
tenant nudged him and pushed
a couple of buttons on the dash-
board. “Here go the flares, now.”

Immediately, a couple of air-
jeeps pounced in, to strafe the
fleeing enemy. Somebody must
have already been issuing orders
on another wavelength ; a num-
ber of Kragans, riding hippo-
saurs, were galloping into the
light of the flares.

“Now, let’s have a look at the
native barracks and the main-
tenance-yards,” he said. “And
then, we’ll make a circuit around
the Reservation, about two-three
miles out. I’m not happy about
where Firkked’s army is.”

The driver looked at him.
“I’ve been worrying about that,
too, sir,” he said. “I can’t un-
derstand why he hasn’t jumped
us, already. I know it takes time
to get one of these geek armies
on the road, but . . .”

“He’s hoping our native-troops
and the mine laborers will be
able to wipe us out, themselves,”
von Schlichten said.

There was nothing going on in

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

the area between the native bar-
racks and the mountains except
some sporadic firing as small pa-
trols of Kragans clashed with
clumps of fleeing mutineers. All
the barracks, even those of the
Rifles, were burning ; the red-
and-yellow danger-lights around
the power-plant and the water-
works and the explosives maga-
zines were still on. Most of the
floodlights were still on, and
there was still some fighting
around the maintenance-yard. It
looked as though the survivors of
the Tenth N.U.N.I. were in a
few small pockets which were
being squeezed out.

There was nothing at all go-
ing on north of the Reservation ;
the countryside, by day a check-
erboard of walled fields and
small villages, was dark, except
for a dim light, here and there,
where the occupant's of some
farmhouse had 'been awakened by
the noise of battle.

Then, two miles east of the
Reservation, he caught a new
sound — the flowing, riverlike,
murmer of something vast on
the move.

“Hear that, lieutenant?” he
asked. “Head for it, at about a
thousand feet. When we’re di-
rectly above it, let go some
flares.”

“Yes, sir.” The younger man
had lowered his voice to a whis-

per. “That’s geeks; headed for
the Reservation.”

“Maybe Firkked’s army,” von
Schlichten thought aloud. “Or
maybe a city mob.”

The noises were growing
clearer, louder. He picked up the
phone and punched the wave-
length of the military airport.

“Yon Schlichten; my compli-
ments to Colonel Jarman. Tell
him there’s a geek mob, or pos-
sibly Firkked’s regulars, on the
main highway from Skilk, two
miles east of the Reservation.
Get some combat contragravity
over here, at once. We’ll light
them up for you. And tell Colonel
Jarman to start flying patrols up
and down along the Hoork
River; this may not be the only
gang that’s coming out to see
us.”

The sounds were directly be-
low, now— the scuffing of horny-
soled feet on the dirt road, the
clink and rattle of slung weap-
ons, the clicking and squeaking
of Ullran voices.

The lieutenant said: “Here go
the flares, sir.”

Von Schlichten shut his eyes,
then opened them slowly. The
driver, upon releasing the flares,
had nosed up, banked, turned,
and was coming in again, down
the road toward the advancing
column. Von Schlichten peered

ULLR UPRISING

into his all-armament sight, his
foot on the machine-gun pedal
and his fingers on the rocket but-
tons. The highway below was
jammed with geeks, and they
were all stopped dead and star-
ing upward, as though hypno-
tized by the lights. It was obvi-
ously a mob. A second later, they
had recovered and were shoot-
ing— not at the airjeep, but at
the four globes of blazing mag-
nesium. Then he had the close-
packed mass of non-humanity in
his sights; he tramped the pedal
and began punching buttons. He
still had four rockets left by the
time the mob was behind him.

“All right, let’s take another
pass at them. Same direction.”

The driver put the airjeep into
a quick loop and came out of it
in front of the mob, who now
had their backs turned and were
staring in the direction in which
they had last seen the vehicle.
Again, von Schlichten plowed
them with rockets and harrowed
them with his guns. Some of the
Skilkans were trying to get over
the high fences on either side of
the road — really stockades of
petrified' tree-trunks. Others
were firing, and this time they
were shooting at the airjeep. It
took one hit from a heavy shello-
saur-rifle, and immediately the
driver banked and turned away
from the road, heading back.

“Dammit, why did you do
that?” von Schlichten demand-
ed, lifting his foot from the gun-
pedal. “Are you afraid of the
kind of popguns those geeks are
using?”

“I am not afraid to risk my
vehicle, or myself, sir,” the lieu-
tenant replied, with the extreme
formality of a very junior officer
chewing out a very senior one.
“I am, however, afraid to risk
my passenger. Generals are not
expendible, sir.”

He was right, of course. Von
Schlichten admitted it. “I’m too
old to play cowboy, like this,” he
said. “Back to the Reservation;
telecast station.”

Looking back over his shoul-
der, he saw eight or ten more
flares alight, and the ground-
flashes of exploding shells and
rockets; the air above the road
was sparkling with gun-flames.
Jarman must have had some con-
tragravity ready to be sent off
on the instant.

While he had been out, some-
body had gotten a TV-pickup
mounted on a contragravity-
lifter and run up to two thou-
sand feet, on r the end of a
steel-tough tensilon mooring-
line. The big circular screen was
lit, showing the whole Company
Reservation, with the surround-
ing countryside foreshortened

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

by perspective to the distant
lights of Skilk. The map had
been taken up from the' floor, and
a big terrain-board had been
brought in from the Chief
Engineer’s office and set up in
its place. In front of the screen,
Paula Quinton, Barney Mordko-
vitz, Colonel Cheng-Li, and, con-
spicuously silent, Jules Keav-
eney, sat drinking coffee and
munching sandwiches. Half a
dozen Terrans, of both sexes,
were working furiously to get
the markers which replaced the
pink and white pills placed on
the board, and one of Captain
Inez Malavez’ non-coms, with a
headset, was getting combat re-
ports directly from the switch-
board. Everything was clicking
like well-oiled machinery.

On the TV-screen, the Resi-
dency area was ablaze with light,
and so were the ship-docks, the
airport and spaceport, the shops,
and the maintenance-yard. On
the terrain-board, the latter was
now marked as completely in
Company hands. The ruins of
the native-troops barracks were,
still burning, and there was a
twinkle of orange-red here and
there among the ruins of the
labor-camp. Much of the equip-
ment for the Polar mines had
already been shifted into de-
fensible ground. The rest of the
circle was dark, except for the

distant lights of Skilk, where t-he
nuclear power plant was appar-
ently still functioning in native
hands.

Then, without warning, a spot
of white light blazed into being
south-east of the Company area
and south-west of Skilk, fol-
lowed by another and another.
Instantly, von Schlichten glanced
up at the row of smaller screens,
arid on one of them saw the view
as picked up by a patrolling air-
jeep.

The army of King Firkked of
Skilk had finally put in its ap-
pearance, about three miles south
of the Reservation. The Skilkan
regulars had been marching in
formation, some on the road and
some along parallel lanes and
paths. They had the look of
trained and disciplined troops,
but they had made the same mis-
take as the rabble that had been
shot up on the north side of the
Reservation. Unused to attack
from the air, they had all halted
in place and were gaping open-
mouthed, their opal teeth gleam-
ing in the white flare-light.

In the big screen, it could be
seen that Colonel Jarman had
thrown most of his available
contragravity at them, including
the combat-cars that had already
started to form the second wave
of the attack on the mob to the

ULLR UPRISING

north. Other flares bloomed in
the darkness, and the fiery trails
of rockets curved downward to
end in yellow flashes on the
ground.

The air jeep with the pickup
circled back; the troops on the
road and in the adjoining fields
had broken. The former were
caught between the fences which
made Ullran roads such death-
traps when under air-attack. The
latter had dispersed, and were
running away, individually and
by squads ; at first, it looked like
a panic, but he could see officers
signalling to the larger groups
of fugitives to open out, appar-
ently directing the flight. By this
time, there were ten or twelve
combat-cars and about twenty
airjeeps at work. In the moving
view from the pickup-jeep, he
saw what looked like a 90-mm.
rocket land in the middle of a
company that was still trying to
defend itself with smallarms fire
on the road, wiping out about
half of them.

“The next time they’re air-
struck, they won’t stay bunched,”
Mordkovitz stated. “A lot of
them didn’t stay bunched this
time, if you noticed. And they’ll
keep out from between the
fences.”

In the large screen, a quick
succession of gun-flashes leaped
up from the direction of the

Hoork River ; shells began burst-
ing over the scene of ttft attack.
The screen tuned to the pickup
on the airjeep went dead ; in the
big screen, there was a twinkling
of falling fire. Almost at once,
thirty or forty rocket-trails con-
verged on the gun-position, and,
for a moment, explosions burned
like a bonfire.

“They had a 75-mm. at the
rear of the column,” somebody
called from the big switchboard.
“Lieutenant Kalanangjs jeep was
hit; Lieutenant Vermaas is cut-
ting in his pickup on the same
wavelength.”

The small screen lighted again.
In the big screen, a cluster of
magnesium-lights then appeared
above where the Skilkan gun had
been ; in the small screen, there
was a stubbled grain-field, pocked
with craters, and the bodies of
fifteen or twenty natives, all
rather badly mangled. An over-
turned and apparently destroyed
75-mm. gun lay on its side.

“As far as we know, that was
the only 75-mm. gun Firkked
had,” Colonel Cheng-Li said. “He
has at least six, possibly ten,
40-mm’s. It’s a wonder we
haven’t seen anything of them.”

“Well, there’s no way of being
sure,” Jules Keaveney said, “but
I have an idea they’re all at or
around the Palace. Firkked

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

knows about how much contra-
gravity we have. He’s probably
wondering why we aren’t bomb-
ing him, now.”

“He doesn’t know we’ve sold
the Palace to King Jonkvank for
an army,” von Schlichten said.
“And that reminds me; how
much contragravity could
Firkked scrape together, for an
attack on us? I’ve been expect-
ing a geek Luftwaffe over here,
at any moment.”

Colonel Cheng-Li studied the
smoking tip of his cigarette for
a moment. “Well, Firkked owns,
personally, three ten-passenger
aircars, a thing like a troop-car-
rier that he transports some of
his courtiers around in, four air-
jeeps armed with a pair of
15-mm. machine-guns apiece, and
two big lorries. There are pos-
sibly two hundred vehicles of all
types in Skilk and the country
around, but some of them are in
the hand's of natives friendly to
us.”

Von Schlichten nodded. “And
there’ll be oodles of thermocon-
centrate-fuel, and blasting explo-
sives. Colonel Quinton, suppose
you call Ed Wallingsby, the
Chief Engineer, right away;
have him commissioned colonel.
Tell him to get to work making
this place secure against air-at-
tack, to consult with Colonel
Jarman, and to get those geeks

Leavitt has penned in the re-
pair-dock at the airport and use
them to dig slit-trenches and fill
sandbags and so on. He can use
Kragan limited-duty wounded to
guard them . . . Mr. Keaveney,
you’ll begin setting up something
in the way of an ARP-organiza-
tion. You’ll have to get along on
what nobody else wants. You will
also consult with Colonel Jar-
man, and with Colonel Wallings-
by. Better get started on it now.
Just think of everything around
here that could go wrong in case
of an air attack, and try to do
something about it in advance.”

VIII

At 0245, an attack developed
on the north-western corner of
the Reservation, in the direction
of the explosives magazines. It
turned out to be relatively triv-
ial. Remnants of the mob that
had been broken up ;by air attack
on the road had gotten together
and were making rushes in small
bands, keeping well spread out.
Beating them off took consider-
able ammunition, but it was ac-
complished with negligible cas-
ualties to the defenders. They
finally stopped coming around
daylight.

In the meantime, Themistocles
M’zangwe called from Konkrook.
“About six hundred of Kankad’s

ULLR UPRISING

people have gotten in, already,
in the damnedest collection of
vehicles you ever saw,” he re-
ported. “Kankad must be using
every scrap of contragravity he
has ; it’s a regular airborne Dun-
kirk-in-reverse. Kankad sent
word that he’s coming here in
person, as soon as he has things
organized at his place. And the
geeks, here, have scraped to-
gether an air-force of their own
— farm-lorries, aircars, that sort
of thing — and they’re using them
to bomb us here and at the main-
land farm, mostly with nitro-
glycerine. We’ve shot down
about twenty of them, but
they’re -still coming. They tried
a boat-attack across the Channel.
We’ve been doing some bombing,
ourselves ; we made a down-pay-
ment for Eric Blount and Hen-
drik Lemoyne. Took a fifty-ton
tank off a fuel-lorry, fitted it
with a detonator, filled it with
thermoconcentrate, and ferried
it over on the Elmoran and
dumped it on the Keegarkan Em-
bassy. It must have landed in
the middle of the central court;
in about fifteen seconds, flames
were coming out every window
in the place.” His face became
less jovial. “We had something
pretty bad happen here, too,” he
said. “That Konkrook Fencibles
rabble of Prince Jaizerd’s mu-
tinied, along with the others;

they got into the hospital and
butchered everybody in the
place, patients and staff. The
Kragans got there too late to
save anybody, but they wiped
out the Fencibles. Jaizard him-
self was the only one they took
alive, and he didn’t stay that
way very long.”

“How are you making out with
your Civil Administration
crowd ?”

M’zangwe grimaced. “I haven’t
had to put any of them under
actual arrest, so far, but we’ve
had to keep Buhrmann away
from the communications equip-
ment by force. He wanted to call
you up and chew you out for not
evacuating everybody in the
North to Konkrook.”

“Is he crazy?”.

“No, just scared. He says
you’re going to get everybody
on Ullr massacred by detail,
when you could save Konkrook
by bringing them all here.”

“You tell him I’m going to
hold this planet, not just one
city. Tell him I have a sense of
my duty to the Company and its
stockholders, if he hasn’t; put it
in those terms and he may un-
derstand you.”

By 0330, it was daylight; the
attacks against the north-west
corner of the perimeter stopped
entirely. Wallingsby had the

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

three-hundred-odd Skilkan la-
borers at work ; he had gathered
up all the tarpaulin he could
find, and had the two sewing-ma-
chines in the tentmaker’s shop
running on sandbags. Jules
Keaveney, to von Schlichten’s
agreeable surprise, had taken
hold of his ARP assignment, and
was doing an efficient job in or-
ganizing for fire-fighting, dam-
age-control and first aid. Colonel
Jarman had his air jeeps and
combat-cars working in ever-
widening circles over the coun-
tryside, shooting up everything
in sight that even looked like
contragravity equipment. Some
of these patrols had to be re-
called, around 1030, when spo-
radic nuisanCe-sniping began
from the side of the mountain
to the west. And, along with
everything else, Paula Quinton
managed to get a complete digest
prepared of the situation else-
where in the Terran-occupied
parts of the planet.

The situation at Konkrook
was brightening steadily. The
second wave of Kankad’s impro-
vised airlift, reenforced by con-
tragravity from Konkrook, had
come in ; there were now close
to two thousand fresh Kragans
on Gongonk Island and the main-
land farms, Kankad himself with
them. The Aldebnran had
reached Kankad’s Town, and

was loading another thousand
Kragans . . . There was nothing
more from Keegark. A message
from Colonel MacKinnon had
come in at dawn, to the effect
that the geeks had penetrated his
last defenses and that he was
about to blow up the Residency;
thereafter Keegark went off the
air . . . By 0730, the Northern
Star had landed the regiment
Murderers, armed with first-
quality Terran infantry-rifles
and a few machine-guns and ba-
zookas, at the Palace at Krink,
and by 0845 she had returned
with another regiment, the Jeel-
Feeders. The three-street lane
connecting the Palace and the
Residency had been widened to
six, and then to eight . . . Guido
Karamessinis, at Grank, was
still at uneasy peace with King
Yoorkerk, who was still unde-
cided whether the rebels or the
Company were going to be the
eventual victors, and afraid to
take any irrevocable step in
either direction.

At 1100, Paula Quinton and
Barney Mordkovitz virtually or-
dered him to get some sleep. He
went to his quarters at Company
House, downed a spaceship-cap-
tain’s-size drink of honey-rum,
and slept until 1600. As he
dressed and shaved, he could
hear, through the open window.

ULLR UPRISING

the slow sputter of kmallarms-
fire, punctuated by the occasional
whump-whump-whump of 40-
mm. auto-cannon or the hammer-
ing of a machine-gun.

Returning to his command-
post at the telecast station, the
terrain-board showed that the
perimeter of defense had been
pushed out in a bulge at the
north-west corner ; the TV-
screen pictured a crude breast-
work of petrified tree-trunks,
sandbags, mining machinery,
packing-cases and odds-and-ends,
upon which Wallingsby’s native
laborers were working under
guard while a skirmish-line of
Kragans had been thrown out
another four or five hundred
yards and were exchanging pot-
shots with Skilkans on the gul-
lied hillside.

‘‘Where’s Colonel Quinton?”
he asked. “She ought to be tak-
ing a turn in the sack, now.”

“She’s taking one,” Major
Falkenberg told him. “General
Mordkovitz chased her off to bed
a couple of hours ago, called me
in to take her place, and then
went out to replace me. Colonel
Guilliford’s in the hospital ; got
hit about thirteen hundred.
They’re afraid he’s going to lose
a leg.”

More reports came in. The en-
tire garrison of the small Resi-
dency at Kwurk, the most north-

ern of the eastern shore Free
Cities, had arrived at Kankad’s
Town in two hundred-foot con-
tragravity scows and five air-
cars. Two of the aircars arrived
half, an hour behind the rest of
the refugee flotilla, having
turned off at Keegark to pay
their respects to King Orgzild.
They reported the Keegark Resi-
dency in ruins, its central build-
ings vanished in a huge crater;
the Jan Smuts and the Chris-
tiaan De Wett were still in the
Company docks, both apparently
damaged by the blast which had
destroyed the Residency. One of
the aircars had rocketed and
machine-gunned some Keegar-
kans who appeared to be trying
to repair them; the other blew
up King Orgzild’s nitroglycerine
plant. Von Schlichten called
Konkrook and ordered a bomb-
ing-mission against Keegark or-
ganized, to make sure the two
ships stayed out of service.

The Northern Star was still
bringing loyal troops into Krink.
King Jonkvank, whom von
Schlichten called, was highly
elated.

“We are killing traitors wher-
ever we find them!” he exulted.
“The city is yellow with their
blood ; their heads are piled
everywhere ! How is it with you
at Skilk? Do the heads fall?”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

“We have killed many, also,”
von Schlichten boasted. “And to-
night, we will kill more; we are
preparing bombs of great de-
struction, which we will rain
down upon Skilk until there is
not one stone left upon another,
or one infant of a day’s age left
alive !”

Jonkvank reacted as he was
intended to. “Oh, no, general;
don’t do all that!” he exclaimed.
“You promised me that I should
have Skilk, on the word of a
Terran. Are you going to give
me a city of ruins and corpses?
Ruins are no good to anybody,
and I am not a Jeel, to eat
corpses.”

Von Schlichten shrugged.
“When you are strong, you can
flog your enemies with a whip;
when you are weak, all you can
do is kill them. If I had five thou-
sand more troops, here . .

“Oh, I will send troops, as soon
as I can,” Jonkvank hastened to
promise. “All my best regiments.
But, now that we have stopped
this sinful rebellion, here, I can’t
take chances that it will break
out again as soon as I strip the
city of troops.”

Von Schlichten nodded. Jonk-
vank’s argument made sense; he
would have taken a similar posi-
tion, himself.

“Well, get as many as you can
over here, as soon as possible,”

he said. “We’ll try to do as little
damage to Skilk as we can,
but . .

At 1830, Paula joined him for
her breakfast, while he sat in
front of the big screen, eating
his dinner. There had been light
ground-action along the southern
end of the perimeter — King
Firkked’s regulars, reenforced
by Zirk tribesmen and levies of
townspeople, all of whom seemed
to have firearms, were filtering
in through the ruins of the labor-
camp and the wreckage of the
equipment-park — and there was
renewed sniping from the
mountainside. The long after-
noon of the northern Autumn
dragged on; finally, at 2200, the
sun set, and it was not fully dark
for another hour. For some time,
there was an ominous quiet, and
then, at 0030, the enemy began
attacking in force, driving herds
of livestock — lumbering six-
legged brutes bred by the North
Ullrans for food — to test the de-
fenses for electrified wire and
landmines. Most of these were
shot down or blown up, but a few
got as far as the wire, which, by
now, had been strung and elec-
trified completely around th#-
perimeter.

Behind them came parties of
Skilkan regulars with long-
handled insulated cutters ; a cou-

ULLR UPRISING

pie of cuts were made in the
wire, and a section of it went
dead. The line, at this point, had
been rather thinly held ; the de-
fenders immediately called for
air-support, and Jarman ordered
fifteen of his remaining twenty
airjeeps and five combat-cars
into the fight. No sooner were
they committed than the radar
on the commercial airport con-
trol-tower picked up air vehicles
approaching from the north, and
the air-raid sirens began howl-
ing and the searchlights went on.

The contragravity which had
been sent to support the ground-
defense at the south side of the
Reservation turned to meet this
new threat, and everything else
available, including the four
heavy air-tanks, lifted up. Mean-
while, guns began firing from the
ground and from rooftops.

There had been four aircars,
ordinary passenger vehicles
equipped with machine-guns on
improvised mounts, and ten big
lorries converted into bombers,
in the attack. All the lorries, and
all but one of the makeshift
fighter-escort, were shot down,
but not before explosive and
thermoconcentrate bombs were
dumped all over the place. One
lorry emptied its load of thermo-
concentrate-bombs on the con-
trol-building at the airport,
starting a raging fire and put-

ting the radar out of commis-
sion. A repair-shop at ordnance-
depot was set on fire, and a
quantity of small-arms and ma-
chine-gun ammunition piled out-
side for transportation to the
outer defenses blew up. An ex-
plosive bomb landed on the roof
of the building between Company
House and the telecast station,
blowing a hole in the roof and
demolishing the upper floor. And
another load of thermoconcen-
trate, missing the power-plant,
set fire to the dry grass between
it and the ruins of the native-
troops barracks.

Before the air-attack had been
broken up, the soldiers of King
Firkked and their irregular sup-
porters were swarming through
the dead section of wire. They
had four or five big farm-trac-
tors, nuclear-powered but un-
equipped with contragravity-
generators, which they were
using like groundHanks of the
First Century. This attack pene-
trated to the middle of the Res-
ervation before it was stopped
and the attackers either killed
or driven out; for the first time
since daybreak, the red-and-yel-
Iow lights came on around the
power-plant.

As soon as the combined air
and ground attack was beaten
off, von Schlichten ordered all

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

his available contragravity up,
flying patrols around the Res-
ervation and retaliatory bomb-
ing missions against Skilk, and
began bombarding the city with
his 90-mm. guns. A number of
fires broke out, and at about
0200 a huge expanding globe of
orange-red flame soared up from
the city.

“There goes Firkked’s thermo-
concentrate stock,” he said to
Paula, who was standing beside
him in front of the screen.

Half an hour later, he discov-
ered that he had been over-opti-
mistic. Much of the enemy’s
supply of Terran thermoconcen-
trate had been destroyed, but
enough remained to pelt the Res-
ervation and the Company build-
ings with incendiaries, when a
second and more severe air-at-
tack developed, consisting of
forty or fifty makeshift lorry-
bombers and fifteen aircars.

Like the first, the second air-
attack was beaten off, or, more
exactly, down. Most of the ene-
my contragravity was de-
stroyed ; at least two dozen
vehicles crashed inside the Res-
eration. As in the first instance,
•there was a simultaneous ground
attack from the southern side,
with a demonstration-attack at
the north end. It was full day-
light before the last of the at-

tackers was either killed or
driven out.

Five minutes later, the North-
ern Star came bulking over the
mountains from the west.

Von Schlichten raced for the
telecast station, to receive a call
from a Colonel Khalid ib’n Talal,
aboard the approaching ship.

“I’ve one of Jonkvank’s regi-
ments, the Jeel-Feeders, armed
with Terran 9-mm. rifles and a
few bazooks ; I have a company
of our Zirks, with their mounts,
and a battalion of the Sixth
N.U.N.I.; I also have four 90-
mm. guns, Terran-manned,” he
reported. “What’s the situation,
general, and where do you want
me to land?”

Von Schlichten described the
situation succinctly, in an an-
cient and unprintable military
cliche. “Try landing south of the
Reservation, a little west of the
ruins of the labor-camp,” he ad-
vised. “The bulk of Firkked’s
army is in that section, and I
want them run out as soon as
possible. We’ll 'give you all the
contragravity and fire support
we can.”

The Northern Star let down
slowly, firing her guns and drop-
ping bombs ; as she descended,
rifle-fire spurted from all her

ULLR UPRISING

lower-deck portholes. There was
cheering, human and Ullran,
from inside the battered defense-
perimeter; combat-cars, airjeeps,
and improvised bombers lifted
out to strafe the Skilkans on the
ground, and the four airtanks
moved out to take position and
open fire with their 90-mm.’s,
helping to flush King Firkked’s
regulars and auxiliaries out .of
the gullies and ruins and drive
them south -along the mountain,
away from where the ship would
land and also away from the city
of Skilk. The Northern Star set
down quickly, and troops and
artillery began to be unloaded,
joining in the fighting.

It was five hundred miles to
Krink ; three hours after lifting
out, the Northern Star was back
again, with two more of King
Jonkvank’s infantry regiments,
and by 1300, when the fourth
load arrived from Krink, the
fighting was entirely on the east-
ern bank of the dry Hoork
River. This last contingent of
reenforcements was landed in
the eastern suburbs of Skilk and
began fighting their way into the
city from the rear.

It was evident, however, that
the pacification of Skilk would
not be accomplished as rapidly
as von Schlichten wished —
street fighting, against a deter-
mined enemy, is notoriously slow

work — and he decided to risk the
Northern Star in an attack
against the Palace itself, and,
over the objections of Paula
Quinton, Jules Keaveney, and
Barney Mordkovitz, to lead the
attack in person.

Inside the city, he found that
the Zirk cavalry from Krink had
thrust up one of the broader
streets to within a thousand
yards of the Palace, and, sup-
ported by infantry, contragrav-
i.t.y, and a couple of airtanks,
were pounding and hacking at a
mass of Skilkans whose uniform
lack of costume prevented dis-
tinguishing between soldiery
and townsfolk. Very few of
these, he observed, seemed to be
using firearms; with his glasses,
he could see them shooting with
long Northern air-rifles and a
few Takkad Sea crossbows.
Either weapon would shoot clear
through a Terran or half-way
through an Ullran at fifty yards,
but at over two hundred they
were almost harmless. There
were a few fires still burning
from the bombardment of the
night before — Ullran, and par-
ticularly North Ullran, cities did
not burn well — and the blaze
which had consumed the bulk of
Firkked’s stock of thermoconcen-
trate fuel had long ago burned
out, leaving an area of six or

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

eight blocks blackened and life-
less.

The ship let down, while the
six combat-cars which had ac-
companied her buzzed the Pal-
ace roof, strafing it to keep it
clear, and the Kragans aboard
fired with their rifles. She came
to rest on seven-eights weight
reduction, and even before the
gangplanks were run out, the
Kragans were dropping to the
flat roof, running to stairhead
penthouses and tossing grenades
into them.

The taking of the Palace was
a gruesome business. Knowing
exactly how much mercy they
would have shown had they
been storming the Residency,
Firkked’s soldiers and courtiers
fought desperately and had to
be exterminated, floor by floor,
room by room, hallway by hall-
way. They had to fight for every
inch downward.

Driving down from above, von
Schlichten and his Kragans
slithered over floors increasing-
ly greasy with yellow Ullran
blood. He had picked up a broad-
sword at the foot of the first
stairway down ; a little later, he
tossed it aside in favor of an-
other, better balanced and with
a better guard. There was a fu-
rious battle at the doorways of
the Throne Room; finally, climb-
ing over the bodies of their own

dead and the enemy’s, they were
inside.

Here there was no question of
quarter whatever, at least as long
as Firkked lived; North Ullran
nobles did not surrender under
the eyes of their king, and North
Ullran kings did not surrender
their thrones alive. There was
also a tradition, of which von
Schlichten was mindful, that a
king must only be killed by his
conqueror, in personal combat,
with steel.

With a wedge of Kragan bay-
onets around him and the picked-
up broadsword in his hand, he
fought his way to the throne,
where Firkked waited, a sword
in one of his upper hands, his
Spear of State in the other, and
a dagger in either lower hand.
With his left hand, von Schlich-
ten detached the bayonet from
the rifle of one of his followers
and went forward, trying not to
think of the absurdity of a man
of the Sixth Century A.E., the
representative of a civilized
Chartered Company, dueling to
the death with swords with a
barbarian king for a throne he
had promised to another barbar-
ian, or of what could happen on
Ullr if he allowed this four-
armed monstrosity to kill him.

It was not as bad as it looked,
however. The ornate Spear of

ULLR UPRISING

State, in spite of its long, cruel-
looking blade, was not an espe-
cially good combat-weapon, at
least for one hand, and Firkked
seemed confused by the very
abundance of his armament.
After a few slashes and jabs,
von Schlichten knocked the un-
wieldy thing from his opponent’s
hand. This raised a fearful ullu-
lation from the Skilkan nobility,
who had stopped fighting to
watch the duel ; evidently it was
the very worst sort of a bad
omen. Firkked, seemingly re-
lieved to be disencumbered of
the thing, caught his sword in
both hands and aimed a round-
house swing at von Schlichten’s
head ; von Schlichten dodged,
crippled one of Firkked’s lower
hands with a quick slash, and
lunged at the royal belly.
Firkked used his remaining dag-
ger to parry, backed a step closer
his throne, and took another
swing with his sword, which von
Schlichten parried on the bay-
onet in his left hand. Then, back-
ing, he slashed at the inside of
Firkked’s leg with the thou-
sand-year-old coup-de-Jarnac.
Firkked, unable to support the
weight of his dense-tissued
body on one leg, stumbled;
von Schlichten ran him neatly
through the breast with his
sword and through the throat
with the bayonet.

There was silence in the
throne-room for an instant, and
then, with a horrible collective
shriek, the Skilkans threw down
their weapons. One of von
Schlichten’s Kragans slung his
rifle and picked up the Spear of
State with all four hands, taking
his post ceremoniously behind
the victor. A couple of others
dragged the body of Firkked to
the edge of the dais, and one of
them drew his leaf-shaped short-
sword and beheaded it.

At mid-afternoon, von Schlich-
ten was on the roof of the Pal-
ace, holding the Spear of State,
with Firkked’s head impaled on
the point, while a Terran tech-
nician aimed an audio-visual
recorder.

“This,” he said, with the geek-
speaker in his mouth, “is King
Firkked’s Spear of State, and
here, upon it, is King Firkked’s
head. Two days ago, Firkked was
at peace with the Company, and
Firkked was King in Skilk. If he
had not dared raise his feebl*
hand against the might of the
Ullr Company, he would still be
alive, and his Spear would still
be borne behind him. So must
all those who rise against the
Company perish . . . Cut.”

The camera stopped. A Kra-
gan came forward and took the
Spear of State, with its grisly

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

burden, carrying it to a nearby
wall and leaning it up, like a
piece of stage property no longer
required for this scene but
needed for the next. Von Schlich-
ten took out his geek-speaker,
wiped and pouched it, and took
his cigarette case from his
pocket.

“Well, this is the limit!”
Paula Quinton, who had come
up during the filming of the
scene, exploded. “I thought you
had to kill him yourself in order
to encourage your soldiers; I
didn’t think you wanted to make
a movie of it to show your
friends.”

Von Schlichten tapped the
cigarette on the gold-and-plat-
inum case and stared at her
through his monocle.

“Sit down, colonel.” He lit the
cigarette. “Your politico-military
education still needs a little fill-
ing in. At Grank, we have two
ships. One is the Northern
Lights, sister ships of the
Northern Star. The other is the
cruiser Procyon, the only real
warship on Ullr, with a main
battery of four 200-mm. guns.
How King Yoorkerk was able to
get control of those ships I don’t
know, but there will be a board
of inquiry and maybe a couple
of courts-martial, when things
get stabilized to a point where
we can afford such luxuries. As

it is, we need those ships des-
perately, and as soon as he gets
in, I’m sending Hideyoshi
O'Leary IjO Grank with the
Northern Star and a load of Kra-
gan Rifles, to pry them loose.
The audio-visual of which this is
the last scene is going to be one
of the crowbars rhe’s going to
use.”

“But why did you have to fight
Firkked, yourself?” she asked.

“I had to kill him, myself, with
a sword ; according to local cus-
tom, that makes me King of
Skilk.”

“Why, your Majesty!” She
rose and curtsied mockingly.
“But I thought you were going
to make Jonkvank King of
Skilk.”

He shook his head. “Just Vice-
roy,” he corrected. “I’m handing
the Spear of State down to him,
not up to him; he’ll reign as my
vassal, and, consequently, as
vassal of the Company, and be-
fore long, he won’t be much more
at Krink, either. That’ll take a
little longer — there’ll have to be
military missions, and economic
missions, and trade-agreements,
and all the rest of it, first — but
he’s on the way to becoming a
puppet-prince.”

Half an hour later, a large and
excessively ornate air-launch,
specially built at the Konkrook

ULLR UPRISING

shipyards for King Jonkvank,
was sighted coming over the
mountain from the east. An es-
cort of combat-cars was sent to
meet it, and a battalion of Kra-
gans and the survivors of
Firkked’s court were drawn up
on the Palace roof.

“His Majesty, Jonkvank, King
of Krink!” the former herald of
King Firkked’s court, now her-
ald to King Carlos von Schlich-
ten, shouted, ‘banging on a brass
shield with the flat of his sword,
as Jonkvank descended from his
launch, attended by a group of
his nobles and his Spear of State,
with Hideyoshi O’Leary and
Francis X. Shapiro shepherding
them. As the guests advanced
across the roof, the herald
banged again on his shield.

“His Majesty, Carlos von
Schlichten,”— which came out
more or less as Karlok vonk
Zlikdenk — “King, by right of
combat, of Skilk!”

Von Schlichten advanced to
meet his fellow-monarch, his
own Spear of State, w.ith
Firkked’s head still grinning
from it, two paces behind him.

Jonkvank stopped, his face
contorted with saurian rage.

“What is this?” he demanded.
“You told me that I could be
King of Skilk; is this how a
Terran keeps his word?”

“A Terran’s word is always

good, Jonkvank,” von Schlichten
replied, omitting the titles, as
was proper in one sovereign ad-
dressing another. “My word was
that you should reign in Skilk,
and my word stands. But these
things must he done decently, ac-
cording to custom and law. I
killed Firkked in single combat.
Had I not done so, the Spear of
Skilk would have been left lying,
for any of the young of Firkked
to pick up. Is that not the law?”

Jonkvank nodded grudgingly.
“It is the law,” he admitted.

“Good. Now, since I killed
Firkked in lawful manner, his
Spear is mine, and what is mine
I can give as I please. I now
give you the Spear of Skilk, to
carry in my name, as I prom-
ised.”

The Kragan who was carrying
the ceremonial weapon tossed the
head of Firkked from the point ;
another Kragan kicked it aside
and advanced to wipe the spear-
blade with a rag. Von Schlichten
took the spear and gave it to
Jonkvank.

“This is not good!” one of the
Skilkan nobles protested. “That
you should rule over us, yes. You
killed Firkked in single combat,
and you are the soldier of the
Company, which is mighty, as all
here have seen. But that this for-
eigner be given the Spear of
Skilk, that is not at all good!”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

Some of the others, embol-
dened by his example, were jab-
bering agreement.

“Listen, all of you!” von
Schlichten shouted. “Here is no
question of Krink ruling over
Skilk. Does it matter who holds
the Spear of Skilk, when he does
so in my name? And King Jonk-
vank will be no foreigner. He
will come and live among you,
and later he will travel back and
forth between Krink and Skilk,
and he will leave the Spear of
Krink in Krink, and the Spear
of Skilk in Skilk, and in Skilk he
will be a Skilkan. That is how it
must be.”

That seemed to satisfy every-
body except Jonkvank, and he
had wit enough not to make an
issue of it. He even had the
Spear of Krink carried back
aboard his launch, out of sight,
and when he accompanied von
Schlichten, an hour later, to see
Hideyoshi O’Leary off for Grank,
he had the Spear of Skilk carried
behind him. When he was alone
with von Schlichten, in the room
that had been King Firkked’s
bedchamber, however, he ex-
ploded.

“What is all this foolishness
which you promised these peo-
ple in my name and which I must
now carry out? That I am to
leave the Spear of Skilk in Skilk

and the Spear of Krink in Krink,
and come here to live . .

“You wish to hold Skilk?” von
Schlichten asked.

“I intend to hold Skilk. To be-
gin with, there shall be a great
killing here. A very great kill-
ing : of all those who advised
that fool of a Firkked to start
this business; of those who gave
shelter to the false prophet,
Rakked, when he was here; of
the faithless priests who gave
ear to his abominable heresies
and allowed him to spew out his
blasphemies in the temples; of
those who sent spies to' Krink, to
corrupt and pervert my soldiers
and nobles ; of those who . . .”

“All that is as it should be,”
von Schlichten agreed. “Except
that it must be done quickly and
all at once, before the memories
of these crimes fade from the
minds of the people. And great
care must be taken to kill only
those who can be proven to be
guilty of something; thus it will
be said that the justice of King
Jonkvank is terrible to evildoers
but a protection and a shield to
those who keep the peace and
obey the laws. And when the
priests are to be killed, it should
be done under the direction of
those other priests who were
faithful to the gods and whom
King Firkked drove out of their
temples, and it must be done in

ULLR UPRISING

the name of the gods. Thus will
you be esteemed a pious, and not
an impious, king. It must not be
allowed to. seem that the city has
come under foreign rule. And
you must not change the laws,
unless the people petition you to
do so, nor must you increase the
taxes, and you must not confis-
cate the estates of those who are
put to death, for the death of
parents is always forgiven be-
fore the loss of patrimonies.
And you should select certain
Skilkan nobles, and become the
father of their young, and above
all, you must leave none of the
young of Firkked alive, to raise
rebellion against you later.”

Jonkvank nodded, deeply im-
pressed. “By the gods, Karlok
vonk Zlikdenk, this is wisdom !
Now it is to be seen why the likes
of Firkked cannot prevail
against you, or against the Com-
pany as long as you are the Com-
pany’s upper sword-arm ! ”

Honesty tempted von Schlich-
ten, for a moment, to disclaim
originality for the principles he
had just enunciated, even at the
price of trying to pronounce the
name of Niccolo Machiavelli with
a geek-speaker.

The sun slid lower and lower
toward the horizon behind them
as the airear bulleted south
along the broad valley and dry

bed of the Hoork River, nearing
the zone of equal day and night.
Hassan Bogdanoff drove while
Harry Quong finished his lunch,
then changed places to begin his
own. Von Schlichten got. two
bottles of beer from the refrig-
erated section of the lunch-
hamper and opened one for
Paula Quinton and one for him-
self.

“What are we going to do with
these geeks,” — she was using the
nasty and derogatory word un-
consciously and by custom, now
— “after this is all over? We
can’t just tell them, ‘Jolly well
played; nice game, wasn’t it?’
and go back to where we were
Wednesday evening.”

“No, we can’t. There’s going
to have to be a Terran seizure
of political power in every part
of this planet that we occupy,
and as soon as we’re consolidated
around the north of Takkad Sea,
we’re going to have to move in
elsewhere,” he replied. “Keegark,
Konkrook, and the Free Cities,
of course, will be relatively easy
They’re in arms against us now,
and we can take them over by
force. We had to make that deal
with Jonkvank, or, rather, I did,
so that will be a slower process,
but we’ll get it done in time. If
I know that pair as well as I
think I do, Jonkvank and Yoor-
kerk will give us plenty of pre-

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

texts, before long. Then, we can
start giving them government by
law instead of by royal decree,
and real courts of justice; put an
end to the head-payment system,
and to these arbitrary mass
arrests and tax-delinquency im-
prisonments that are nothing
but slave-raids by the geek
princes on their own people.
And, gradually, abolish serfdom.
In a couple of centuries, this
planet will be fit to admit to the
Federation, like Odin and
Freya.”

“Well, won’t that depend a lot
on whom the Company sends
here to take Harrington’s
place?”

“Unless I’m much mistaken,
the Company will 'confirm me,”
he replied. “Administration on
Ullr is going to be a military
matter for a long time to come,
and even the Banking Cartel and
the mercantile interests in the
Company are going to realize
that, and see the necessity for
taking political control. And just
to make sure, I’m sending Hid
O’Leary to Terra on the next
ship, to make a full report on the
situation.”

“You think it’ll be cleared up
by then? The City of Montevideo
is due in from Niflheim in a little
under three months.”

“It’ll have to be cleared up by
then. We can’t keep this war go-

ing more than a month, at the*
present rate. Police-action, and
mopping-up, yes; full-scale war,
no.”

“Ammunition?” she asked.

He looked at her in pleased
surprise. “Your education has
been progressing, at that,” he
said. “You know, a lot of pro-
fessional officers, even up to field
rank in the combat branches,
seem to think that ammo comes
down miraculously from Heaven,
in contragravity lorries, every
time they pray into a radio for
it. It doesn’t; it has to be pro-
duced as fast as it’s expended,
and we haven’t been doing (hat.
So we’ll have to lick these geeks
before it runs out, because we
can’t lick them with gunbutts
and bayonets.”

“Well, how about nuclear
weapons?” Paula asked. “I hate
to suggest it — I know what they
did on Mimir, and Fenris, and
Midgard, and what they did on
Terra, during the First Century.
But it may be our only chance.”

He finished his beer and
shoved the bottle into the waste-
receiver, then got ou his ciga-
rettes. “There isn’t a single nuc-
lear bomb on the planet. The
Company’s always refused to
allow them to be manufactured
or stockpiled here.”

"I don’t think there’d be any

ULLR UPRISING

criticism of your making them,
now, general. And there’s cer-
tainly plenty of plutonium. You
could make A-bombs, at least.”
“There isn’t anybody here who
even knows how to make one.
Most of our nuclear engineers
could work one up, in about
three months, when we’d either
not need one or not be alive.”
“Dr. Gomes, who came in on
the Pretoria, two weeks ago, can
make them,” she contradicted.
“He built at least a dozen of
them on Niflheim, to use in acti-
vating volcanoes and bringing
ore-bearing lava to the surface.”
Von Schlichten’s hand, bring-
ing his lighter to the tip of his
cigarette, paused for a second.
Then he completed the operation,
snapped it shut, and put it away.
“When did all this happen?”
She took time out for mental
arithmetic; even a spaceship offi-
cer had to do that, when a ques-
tion of interstellar time-relations
arose.

“About three-fifty days ago,
Galactic Standard. They’d put off
the first shot, six bombs, before
I got in from Terra. I saw the
second shot a day or so before I
left Niflheim on the Canberra.
Dr. Gomes had to stay over till
the Pretoria to put off the third
shot. Why?”

“Did you run into a geek

named Gorkrink, while you were
on Nif?” he asked her. “And
what sort of work was he do-
ing?”

“Gorkrink? I don’t seem to re-
member . . . Oh, yes! He was
helping Dr. Murillo, the seis-
mologist. His year was up after
the second shot; he came to Ullr
on the Canberra. Dr. Murillo was
sorry to lose him. He understood
Lingua Terra perfectly; Dr.
Murrillo could talk to him, the
way you do with Kankad, with-
out using a geek-speaker.”

“Well, but what sort of
work . . .?”

“Helping set and fire the A-
bombs . . . Oh! Good Lord!”

“You can say that again, and
deal in Allah, Shiva, and Kali,”
von Schlichten told her.' “Espe-
cially Kali . . . Harry! See if you
can get some more speed out of
this can. I want to get to Kon-
krook while it’s still there!”

It wouldn’t be there long, the
way things looked. King Orgzild
had four tons of plutonium, and
with Prince Gorkrink probably
able to build A-bombs, Keegark
would be set to bring Ullr its
first taste of nuclear warfare.
Von Schlichten shuddered as he
pictured that happening. At the
moment, shuddering was about
the only thing he could do.

(TO BE CONCLUDED)

THE

BY WILLIAM MORRISON

ILLUSTRATED BY VAN DONGEN

To all who didn’t know him, Curt George was a
mighty hunter and actor. But this time he was
up against others who could really act, and
whose business was the hunting of whole worlds.

There were thirty or more of
the little girls, their ages rang-
ing apparently from nine to
eleven, all of them chirping
away like a flock of chicks as
they followed the old mother hen
past the line of cages. “Now,
now, girls,” called Miss Burton
cheerily. “Don’t scatter. I can’t
keep my eye on you if you get
too far away from me. You,
Hilda, give me that water pistol.
No, don’t fill it up first at that

fountain. And Frances, stop
bouncing your ball. You’ll lose it
through the bars, and a polar
bear may get it and not want to
give it back.”

Frances giggled. “Oh, Miss
Burton, do you think the polar
bear would want to play catch?”

The two men who were look-
ing on wore pleased smiles.
“Charming,” said Manto. “But
somewhat unpredictable, despite
all our experiences, muy amigo.”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

“No attempts at Spanish, Man-
to, not here. It calls attention to
us. And you are not sure of the
grammar anyway. You may find
yourself saying things you do
not intend.”

“Sorry, Palit. It wasn’t an at-
tempt to show my skill, I assure
you. It’s that by now I have a
tendency to confuse one language
with another.”

“I know. You were never a lin-
guist. But about these interest-
ing creatures — ”

“I suggest that they could
stand investigation. It would be
good to know how they think.”

“Whatever you say, Manto. If
you wish, we shall join the little
ladies.”

“We must have our story pre-
pared first.”

Palit nodded, and the two men
stepped under the shade of a
tree whose long, drooping, leaf-
covered branches formed a con-
venient screen. For h moment,
the tree hid silence. Then there
came from beneath the branches
the chatter of girlish voices, and
two little girls skipped merrily
away. Miss Burton did not at
first notice that novw she had an
additional two children in her
charge.

“Do you think you will be able
to keep your English straight?”
asked one of the new little girls.

The other' one smiled with

amusement and at first did not
answer. Then she began to skip
around her companion and
chant, “I know a secret, I know
a secret.”

There was no better way to
make herself inconspicuous. For
some time, Miss Burton did not
notice her.

The polar bears, the grizzlies,
the penguins, the reptiles, all
were left behind. At times the
children scattered, but Miss Bur-
ton knew how to get them to-
gether again, and not one was
lost.

* “Here, children, is the build-
ing where the kangaroos live.
Who knows where kangaroos
come from?”

“Australia!” clanged the shrill
chorus.

“That’s right. And what other
animals come from Australia?”

“I know, Miss Burton!” cried
Frances, a dark-haired nine-
year-old with a pair of glitter-
ing eyes that stared like a pair
of critics from a small heart-
shaped face. “I’ve been here be-
fore. Wallabies and wombats!”

“Very good, Frances.”

Frances smirked at the ap-
probation. “I’ve been to the zoo
lots of times,” she said to the
girl next to her. “My father
takes me.”

“I wish my father would take

THE HUNTERS

me too,” replied the other little
girl, with an air of wistfulness.

“Why don’t you ask him to?”
Before the other little girl could
answer, Frances paused, cocked
her head slightly, and demanded,
“Who are you? You aren’t in our
class.”

“I’m in Miss Hassel’s class.”

“Miss Hassel? Who is she? Is
she in our school?”

“I don’.t know,” said the other
little girl uncertainly. “I go to
P. S. 77—”

“Oh, Miss Burton,” screamed
Frances. “Here’s a girl who isn’t
in our class! She got lost from
her own class!”

. “Really?” Miss Burton seemed
rather pleased at the idea that
some other teacher had been so
careless as to lose one of her
charges. “What’s your name,
child?”

“I’m Carolyn.”

“Carolyn what-?”

“Carolyn Manto. Please, Miss
Burton, I had to go to the bath-
room, and then when I came
out —

“Yes, yes, I know.”

A shrill cry came from another
section of her class. “Oh, Miss
Burton, here’s another one who's
lost!”

The other little girl was
pushed forward. “Now, who are
you?’’ Miss Burton asked.

“I’m Doris Palit. I went with
Carolyn to the bathroom — ”

Miss Burton made a sound of
annoyance. Imagine losing two
children and not noticing it right
away. The other teacher must
be frantic by now, and serve her
right for being so careless.

“All right, you may stay with
us until we find a policeman — ”
She interrupted herself. “Fran-
ces, what are you giggling at
now?”

“It’s Carolyn. She’s making
faces just like you!”

“Really, Carolyn, that isn’t at
all nice!”

Carolyn’s face altered itself in
a hurry, so as to lose any resem-
blance to Miss Burton’s. “I’m
sorry, Miss Burton, I didn’t
really mean to do anything
wrong.”

“Well, I’d like to know how
you were brought up, if you
don’t know that it’s wrong to
mimic people to their faces. A
big girl like you, too. How old
are you, Carolyn?”

Carolyn shrank, she hoped im-
perceptibly, by an inch. “I’m
two — ”

An outburst of shrill laugh-
ter. “She’s two years old, she’s
two years old!”

“I was going to say, I’m
towelve. Almost, anyway.”

“Eleven years old,” said Miss

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

Burton. “Old enough to know
better.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Burton. And
honest, Miss Burton, I didn’t
mean anything, but I’m study-
ing to be an actress, and I imi-
tate people, like the actors you
see on television — ”

“Oh, Miss Burton, please don’t
make her go home with a police-
man. If she’s going to be an
actress, I’ll bet she’d love to see
Curt George!”

“Well, after the way she’s be-
haved, I don’t know whether I
should let her. I really don’t.”
“Please, Miss Burton, it was
an accident. I won’t do it again.”
“All right, if you’re good, and
cause no trouble. But we still
have plenty of time before seeing
Mr. George. It’s only two now,
and we’re not supposed to go to
the lecture hall until four.”

“Miss Burton,” called Barbara
Willman, “do you think he’d give
us his autograph?”

“Now, children, I’ve warned
you about that. You mustn’t
annoy him. Mr. George is a fa-
mous movie actor, and his time
is valuable. It’s very kind of him
to offer to speak to us, especial-
ly when so many grown-up peo-
ple are anxious to hear him, but
we mustn’t take advantage of his
kindness.”

“But he likes children, Miss
Burton! My big sister read in a

movie magazine where it said
he’s just crazy about them.”

“I know, but — he’s not in good
health, children. They say he got
jungle fever in Africa, where he
was shooting all those lions, and
rhinoceroses, and elephants for
his new picture. That’s why you
mustn’t bother him too much.”
“But he looks so big and
strong, Miss Burton. It wouldn’t
hurt him to sign an autograph!”
“Oh, yes, it would,” asserted
one little girl. “He shakes. When
he has an attack of fever, his
hand shakes.”

“Yes, Africa is a dangerous
continent, and one never knows
how the dangers will strike one,”
said Miss Burton complacently.
“So we must all remember how
bravely Mr. George is fighting
his misfortune, and do our best
'not -to tire him out.”

In the bright light that flooded
the afternoon breakfast table,
Curt George’s handsome, manly
face wore an expression of dis-
tress. He groaned dismally, and
muttered, “What a head I’ve got,
what a head. How do you expect
me to face that gang of kids
without a drink to pick me up ?”
“You’ve had your drink,” said
Carol. She was slim, attractive,
and efficient. At the moment she
was being more efficient than at-
tractive, and she could sense his

THE HUNTERS 81

resentment. “That’s all you get.
Now, lay off, and try to be
reasonably sober, for a change.”
“But those kids! They’ll squeal
and giggle — ”

“They’re about the only au-
dience in the world that won’t
spot you as a drunk. God knows
where I could find any one else
who’d believe that your hand
shakes because of fever.”

“I know that you’re looking
out for my best interests, Carol.
But one more drink wouldn’t
hurt me.”

She said wearily, but firmly, “I
don’t argue with drunks, Curt. I
just go ahead and protect them
from themselves. No drinks.”
“Afterwards?”

“I can’t watch you the way a
mother watches a child.”

The contemptuous reply sent
his mind off on a new tack. “You
could if we were married.”

“I’ve never believed in marry-
ing weak characters to reform
them.”

“But if I proved to you that I
could change — ”

“Prove it first, and I’ll consid-
er your proposal afterwards.”
“You certainly are a cold-
blooded creature, . Carol. But I
suppose that in your profession ,
you have to be.”

“Cold, suspicious, nasty — and
reliable. It’s inevitable when I
must deal with such warm-heart-

ed, trusting, and unreliable
clients.”

He watched her move about
the room, clearing away the
dishes from his meager break-
fast. “What are you humming,
Carol?”

“Was I humming?”

“I thought I recognized it —
All of Me, Why Not Take All of
Me? That’s it! Your subcon-
scious gives you away. You really
want to marry me!”

“A mistake,” she said coolly.
“My subconscious doesn’t know
what it’s talking about. All I
want of you is the usual ten per
cent.”

“Can’t you forget for a mo-
ment that you’re an agent, and
remember that you’re a woman,
too ?”

“No. Not unless you forget
that you’re a drunk, and remem-
ber that you’re a man. Not un-
less you make me forget that you
drank your way through
Africa — ”

“Because you weren’t there
with me!”

“—with hardly enough energy
to let them dress you in that
hunter’s outfit and photograph
you as if you were shooting
lions.”

“You’re so unforgiving, Carol.
You don’t have much use for me,
do you — consciously, that is?”

“Frankly, Curt, no. I don't

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

have much use for useless peo-
ple.”

“I’m not entirely useless. I
earn you that ten per cent — ”
“I’d gladly forego that to see
you sober.”

“But it’s your contempt for me
that drives me to drink. And
when I think of having to face
those dear little kiddies with
nothing inside me — ”

“There should be happiness in-
side you at the thought of your
doing a good deed. Not a drop,
George, not a drop.”

The two little girls drew apart
from the others and began to
whisper into each other’s ears.
The whispers were punctuated
by giggles which made the entire
childish conversation seem quite
normal. But Palit was in no
laughing mood. He said, in his
own language, “You’re getting
careless, Manto. You had no
business imitating her expres-
sion.”

“I’m sorry, Palit, but it was
so suggestive. And I’m a very
suggestible person.”

“So am I. But I control my-
self.”

“Still, if the temptation were
great enough, I don’t think you’d
be able to resist either.”

"The issues are important
enough to make me resist.”

“Still, I thought I saw your

own face taking on a bit of her
expression too.”

“You are imagining things,
Manto. Another thing, that, mis-
take in starting to say you were
two hundred years old — ”

“They would have thought it
a joke. And I think I got out of
that rather neatly.”

“You like to skate on thin ice,
don’t you, Manto? Just as you
did when you changed your
height. You had no business
shrinking right out in public like
that.”

“I did it skillfully. Not a
single person noticed.”

“7 noticed.”

“Don’t quibble.”-
“I don’t intend to. Some of
these children have very sharp
eyes. You’d be surprised at what
they see.”

Manto said tolerantly, "You’re
getting jittery, Palit. We’ve
been away from home too long.”
“I am not jittery in the least.
But I believe in taking due care.”
“What could possibly happen
to us? If we were to announce
to the children and the teacher,
and to every one in this zoo, for
that matter, exactly who and
what we were,, they wouldn’t be-
lieve us. And even if they did,
they wouldn’t be able to act rap-
idly enough to harm us.”

“You never can tell about such
things. Wise — people — simply

THE HUNTERS 83

don’t take unnecessary chances.”
“I’ll grant that you’re my su-
perior in such -wisdom.”

“You needn’t be sarcastic,
Manto, I know I’m superior. I
realize what a godsend this
planet is — you don’t. It has the
right gravity, a suitable atmos-
phere, the proper chemical com-
position— everything.”

“Including a population that
will be helpless before us.”

“And you would take chances
of losing all this.”

“Don’t be silly, Palit. What
chances am I taking?”

“The chance of being discov-
ered. Here we stumble on this
place quite by accident. No one
at home knows about it, no one
so much as suspects that it ex-
ists. We must get back and re-
port— and you do all sorts of silly
things which may reveal what
we are, and lead these people to
suspect their danger.”

This time, Manto’s giggle was
no longer mere camouflage, but
expressed to a certain degree
-how he felt. “They cannot pos-
sibly suspect. We have been all
over the world, we have taken
many forms and adapted our-
selves to many customs, and no
one has suspected. And even if
danger really threatened, it
would be easy to escape. I could
take the form of the school

teacher herself,, of a policeman,
of any one in authority. How-
ever, at present there is not the
slightest shadow of danger. So,
Palit, you had better stop being
fearful."

Palit said firmly, “Be careful,
and I won’t be fearful. That’s all
there is to it.”

“I’ll be careful. After all, I
shouldn’t want us to lose these
children. They’re so exactly the
kind we need. Look how inquir-
ing they are, how unafraid, how
quick to adapt to any circum-
stances— ”

Miss Burton’s voice said,
“Good gracious, children, what
language are you using? Greek?”

They had been speaking too
loud, they had been overheard.
Palit and Manto stared at each
other, and giggled coyly. Then,
after a second to think, Palit
said, “Onay, Issmay Urtonbay!”

“What?”

Frances shrilled triumphantly,
“It isn’t Greek, Miss Burton, it’s
Latin — Pig-Latin. She said,
‘No, Miss Burton.’ ”

“Good heavens, what is Pig-
Latin ?”

“It’s a kind of way of talking
where you talk kind of back-
wards. Like, you don’t say, Me,
you say, Emay.”

“You don’t say, Yes, you say
Esyay," added another little girl.

“You don’t say, You, you say,

84 SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

Ouyay. You don’t say — ”

“All right, all right, I get the
idea.”

“You don’t say — ”

"That’ll do,” said Miss Bur-
ton firmly. “Now, let’s get along
to the lion house. And please,
children, do not make faces at
the lions. How would you like to
be in a cage and have people
make faces at you? Always re-
member to be considerate to
others.” >

“Even lions, Miss Burton?”
“Even lions.”

“But Mr. George shot lots of
lions. Was he considerate of them
too?”

“There is no time for silly
questions,” said Miss Burton,
with the same firmness. “Come
along.”'

They all trouped after her,
Palit and Manto bringing up the
rear. Manto giggled, and whis-
pered with amusement, “That
Pig-Latin business was quick
thinking, Palit. But in fact, quite
unnecessary. The things that you
do to avoid being suspected!”
“It never hurts to take precau-
tions. And I think that now it is
time to leave.”

“No, not yet. You are always
anxious to learn details before
reporting. Why not learn a few
more details now?”

“Because they are not neces-
sary. We already have a good

understanding of human customs
and psychology.”

“But not of the psychology of
children. And they, if you re-
member, are the ones who will
have to adapt. We shall be asked
about them. It would be nice if
we could report that they are fit
for all-purpose service, on a wide
range of planets. Let us stay
awhile longer.”

“All right,” conceded Palit,
grudgingly.

So they stayed, and out of
some twigs and leaves they
shaped the necessary coins with
which to buy peanuts, and pop-
corn, and ice cream, and other
delicacies favored by the young.
Manto wanted to win easy popu-
larity by treating a few of the
other children, but Palit put his
girlish foot down. No use arous-
ing suspicion. Even as it was —

“Gee, your father gives you an
awful lot of spending money,”
said Frances enviously. “Is he
rich ?”

“We get as much as we want,”
replied Manto carelessly.

“Gosh, I wish I did.”

Miss Burton collected her
brood. “Come together, children,
I have something to say to you.
Soon it will be time to go in and
hear Mr. George. Now, if Mr.
George is so kind as to entertain
us, don’t you think that it’s only

THE HUNTERS

proper for us to entertain him ?”
“We could put on our class
play!” yelled Barbara.

“Barbara’s a fine one to talk,”
said Frances. “She doesn’t even
remember her lines.”

“No, children, we mustn’t do
anything we can’t do well. That
wouldn’t make a good impres-
sion. And besides, there is no
time for a play. Perhaps Barbara
will sing — ”

“I can sing a ‘Thank You’
song,” interrupted Frances.
“That would be nice.”

“I can recite,” added another
little girl.

“Fine. How about you, Caro-
lyn? You and your little friend,
Doris. Can she act too?”

Carolyn giggled. “Oh, yes, she
can act very well. I can act like
people. She can act like animals.”
The laughing, girlish eyes evad-
ed a dirty look from the little
friend. “She can act like any
kind of animal.”

“She’s certainly a talented
child. But she seems so shy!”
“Oh, no,” said Carolyn. “She
likes to be coaxed.”

“She shouldn’t be like that.
Perhaps, Carolyn, you and Doris
can do something together. And
perhaps, too, Mr. George will be
pleased to see that your teacher
also has talent.”

“You, Miss Burton?”

Miss Burton coughed modestly.

“Yes, children, I never told you,
but I was once ambitious to be
an actress too. I studied dra-
matics, and really, I was quite
good at it. I was told that if I
persevered I might actually be
famous. Just think, your teacher
might actually have been a fa-
mous actress! However, in my
day, there were many coarse peo-
ple on the stage, and the life of
the theater was not attractive — -
but perhaps we’d better not
speak of that. At any rate, I
know the principles of the dra-
matic art very well.”

“God knows what I’ll have to
go through,” said Curt. “And I
don’t see how I can take it
sober.”

“I don’t see how they can take
you drunk,” replied Carol.

“Why go through with it at
all? Why not call the whole thing
quits?”

“Because people are depending
on you. You always want to call
quits whenever you run into
something you don’t like. You
may as well call quits to your
contract if that’s the way you
feel.”

“And to your ten per cent,
darling.”

“You think I’d mind that. I
work for my ten per cent, Curt,
sweetheart. I work too damn
hard for that ten per cent.”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

“You can marry me -and take
it easy. Honest, Carol, if you
treated me better, if you showed
me I meant something to you,
I’d give up drinking.”

She made a face. “Don’t talk
nonsense. Take your outfit, and
let’s get ready to go. Unless you
want to change here, and walk
around dressed as a lion hunter.”
“Why not? I’ve walked around
dressed as worse. A drunk.”
“Drunks don’t attract atten-
tion. They’re too ordinary.”

“But a drunken lion hunter —
that’s something special.” He
went into the next room and be-
gan to change. “Carol,” he
called. “Do you like me?”

“At times.”

“Would you say that you liked
me very much?”

“When you’re sober. Rarely.”
“Love me?”

“Once in a blue moon.”

“What would I have to do for
you to want to marry me?”
“Amount to something.”

“I like that. Don’t you think I
amount to something now?
Women swoon at the sight of my
face on the screen, and come to
life again at the sound of my
voice.”

“The women who swoon at you
will swoon at anybody. Besides,
I don’t consider that making nit-
wits swoon is a useful occupa-
tion for a real man.”

“How can I be useful, Carol?
No one ever taught me how.”

“Some people manage without
being taught.”

“I suppose I could think how
if I had a drink inside me.”

“Then you’ll have to do with-
out thinking.”

He came into the room again,
powerful, manly, determined-
looking. There was an expres-
sion in his eye which indicated
courage without end, a courage
that would enable him to brave
the wrath of man, beast, or devil.

“How do I look?”

“Your noble self, of course. A
poor woman’s edition of Rudolph
Valentino.”

“I feel terrified. I don’t know
how I’m going to face those kids.
If they were boys it wouldn’t be
so bad, but a bunch 'of little
girls!”

“They’ll grow up to be your
fans, if you’re still alive five
years from now. Meanwhile, into
each life some rain must fall.”

“You would talk of water,
when you know how I feel.”

“Sorry. Come on, let’s go.”

The lecture hall resounded
with giggles. And beneath the
giggles was a steady undercur-
rent of whispers, of girlish con-
fidences exchanged, of girlish
hopes that would now be ful-
filled. Miss Burton’s class was

THE HUNTERS

not the only one which had come
to hear the famous actor-hunter
describe his brave exploits. There
were at least five others like it,
and by some mistake, a class of
boys, who also whispered to each
other, in manly superiority, and
pretended to find amusement in
the presence of so many of the
fairer sex.

In this atmosphere of giggles
and whispers, Manto and Palit
could exchange confidences- with-
out being noticed. Palit said sav-
agely, “Why did you tel! her that
I could act too?”

“Why, because it’s the truth.
You’re a very good animal per-
former. You make a wonderful
dragon, for instance. Go on,
Palit, show her what a fine
dragon you can — ”

“Stop it, you fool, before you
cause trouble!”

“Very well, Palit. Did I tempt
you?”

“Did you tempt me! You and
your sense of humor!”

“You and your lack of it! But
let’s not argue now, Palit. Here,
I think, comes the lion-hunter.
Let’s scream, and be as properly
excited as every one else is.”

My God, he thought, how can
they keep their voices so high
•so long? My eardrums hurt al-
ready. How do they stand a life-
time of it? Even an hour?

“Go ahead,” whispered Carol.
“You’ve seen the script — go into
your act. Tell them what a hero
you are. You hav'e the odds in
your favor to start with.”

“My lovely looks,” he said,
with some bitterness.

“Lovely is the word for you.
But forget that. If you’re good
— you’ll get a drink afterwards.”
“Will it be one of those occa-
sions when you love me?”

“If the moon turns blue.”

He strode to the front of the
platform, an elephant giin swing-
ing easily at his side, an easy
grin radiating from his confi-
dent, rugged face. The cheers
rose to a shrill fortissimo, but
the grin did not vanish. What a
great actor he really was, he told
himself, to be able to pretend he
liked this.

An assistant curator of some
collection in the zoo, a flustered
old woman, was introducing him.
There were a few laudatory ref-
erences to his great talents as an
actor, and he managed to look
properly modest as he listened.
The remarks about his knowl-
edge of wild and ferocious beasts
were a little harder to take, but
he took them. Then the old
woman stepped back, and he was
facing his fate alone.

“Children,” he began. A pause,
a bashful grin. “Perhaps I
should rather say, my friends.

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

I’m not one to think of you as
children. Some people think of
me as a child myself, because I
like to hunt, and have adven-
tures. They think that such
things are childish. But if they
are, I’m glad to be a child. I’m
glad to be one of you. Yes, I
think I will call you my friends.

“Perhaps you regard me, my
friends, as a very lucky person.
But when I recall some of the
narrow escapes I have had, I
don’t agree with you. I remem-
ber once, when we were on the
trail of a rogue elephant — ”

He told the story of the rogue
elephant, modestly granting a co-
hero’s role to his guide. Then
another story illustrating the
strange ways of lions. The ele-
phant gun figured in still an-
other tale, this time of a vicious
rhinoceros. His audience -was
quiet now, breathless with in-
terest, and he welcomed the re-
spite from shrillness he had won
for his ears.

“And now, my friends, it is
time to say farewell.” He actual-
ly looked sad and regretful.
“But it is my hope that I shall
be able to see you again — ”

Screams of exultation, shrill
as ever, small hands beating
enthusiastically to indicate joy.
Thank God that’s over with, he
thought. Now for those drinks
- — and he didn’t mean drink,

singular. Talk of being useful,
he’d certainly been useful now.
He’d made those kids happy.
What more can any reasonable
person want?

But it wasn’t over with. An-
other old lady had stepped up on
the platform.

“Mr. George,” she said, in a
strangely affected voice, like that
of the first dramatic teacher he
had ‘ever had, the one who had
almost ruined his acting career.
“Mr. George, I can’t tell you
how happy you have made us all,
young and old. Hasn’t Mr.
George made us happy, chil-
dren ?”

“Yes, Miss Burton!” came the
shrill scream.

“And we feel that it would be
no more than fair to repay you
in some small measure for the
pleasure you have given us.
First, a ‘Thank You’ song by
Frances Heller — ”

He hadn’t expected this, and
he repressed* a groan. Merci-
fully, the first song was short.
He grinned the thanks he didn’t
feel. To think that he could take
this, while sober as a judge!
What strength of character,
what will-power !

Next, Miss Burton introduced
another kid, who recited. And
then, Miss Burton stood up-
right and recited herself.

THE HUNTERS

That was the worst of all. He
winced once, then bore up. You
can get used even to torture, he
told himself. An adult making a
fool of herself is always more
painful than a kid. And that
affected elocutionist’s voice gave
him the horrors. But he thanked
her too. His good deed for the
day. Maybe Carol would have
him now, he thought.

A voice shrilled, “Miss Bur-
ton?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Aren’t you going to call on
Carolyn to act?”

“Oh, yes, I was forgetting.
Come up here, Carolyn, come up,
Doris. Cdrolyn and Doris, Mr.
George, are studying how to act.
They act people and animals.
Who knows ? Some day they, too,
may be in the movies, just as you
are, Mr. George. Wouldn’t that
be nice, children?”

What the devil do you do in a
case like that? You grin, of
course — but what do you say,
without handing over your soul
to the devil? Agree how nice it
would be to have those sly little
brats with faces magnified on
every screen all over the coun-
try? Like hell you do.

“Now, what are we going to
act, children?”

“Please, Miss Burton,” said
Doris. “I don’t know how to act.
I can’t even imitate a puppy.

Really I can’t, Miss Burton — ”

“Come, come, mustn’t be shy.
Your friend says that you act
very nicely indeed. Can’t want to
go on the stage and still be shy.
Now, do you know any movie
scenes? Shirley Temple used to
be a good little actress, I remem-
ber. Can you do any scenes that
she does?”

The silence was getting to be
embarrassing. And Carol said he
didn’t amount to anything, he
never did anything useful. Why,
if thanks to his being here this
afternoon, those kids lost the
ambition to go on the stage, the
whole human race would have
cause to be grateful to him. To
him, and to Miss Burton. She’d
kill ambition in anybody.

Miss Burton had an idea. “I
know what to do, children. If
you can act animals — Mr. George
has shown you what the hunter
does ; you show him what the
lions do. Yes, Carolyn and Doris,
you’re going to be lions. You are
waiting in your lairs, ready to
pounce on the unwary hunter.
Crouch now, behind that chair.
Closer and closer he comes — you
act it out, Mr. George, please,
that’s the way — ever closer, and
now your muscles tighten for
the spring, and you open
your great, wide, red mouths
in a great, great big roar — ”

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

A deep and tremendous roar,
as of thunder, crashed through
the auditorium. A roar — and
then, from the audience, an out-
burst of terrified screaming such
as he had never heard. The
bristles rose at the back of his
neck, and his heart froze.

Facing him across the plat-
form were two lions, tensed as
if to leap. Where they had come
from he didn’t know, but there
they were, eyes glaring, manes
ruffled, more terrifying than any
he had seen in Africa. There
they were, with the threat of
death and destruction in their
fierce eyes, and here he was,
terror and helplessness on his
handsome, manly, and bloodless
face, heart unfrozen now and
pounding fiercely, knees melting,
hands —

Hands clutching an elephant
gun. The thought was like a di-
rector’s command. With calm effi-

ciency, with all the precision of
an actor playing a scene re-
hearsed a thousand times, the
gun leaped to his shoulder, and
now its own roar thundered out
a challenge to the roaring of the
wild beasts, shouted at them in
its own accents of barking
thunder.

The shrill screaming continued
long after the echoes of the gun’s
speech had died away. Across
the platform from him were two
great bodies, the bodies of lions,
and yet curiously unlike the
beasts in some ways, now that
they were dead and dissolving as
if corroded by some invisible
acid.

Carol’s hand was on his arm,
Carol’s thin and breathless voice
shook as she said, “A drink — all
the drinks you want.”

“One will do. And you.”

“And me. I guess you’re kind
of — kind of useful after all.”

COMING EVENTS

Next issue H. Beam Piper brings ULLR UPRISING to a smashing con-
clusion, mixed up with a female novelist whose research was as good
in some ways as her books were bad, geeks from Keegark turning
Terran nuclear bombs against the Terrans, and the like. It’s only honest
to admit that he’s only begun to warm up to his subject so far! And
there’ll be THE WORSHIPPERS, by Damon Knight — held over by the
length of the serial this time — about a man who finally realized that
his true destiny was too much for mortal man. Now might be a good
time to suggest you shouldn’t miss it — and to refer you to page 160,
to be sure!

SOLUTION UNKNOWN

BY MILTON A. ROTHMAN

What’s more important — getting some kind of an an-
swer, or learning how to ask the right question? Magic
always had an answer for everything. Science, appar-
ently, is still worrying about the questions to be asked.

Once upon a time there was a
science fiction writer named Joe,
and he was lazy. Naturally, he
had to be lazy. He couldn’t have
been what he was otherwise. All
writers are too lazy to work hon-
estly for a living, as anyone
knows! But the writers who
went into science fiction had to
be the laziest. If they hadn’t
been interested in science, they
would have chosen some other
field ; and with that much inter-
est, if they hadn’t been lazy,
they’d have stuck to their science
courses, instead of quitting
school to make an easy living
writing a mere half million
words a year!

Oh, Joe read books still, look-
ing for scientific ideas he could
crib. But he only did that be-
cause he was too lazy to sit down

at the typewriter and use some
of the other ideas he’d already
cribbed.

But there came a day when
he found the answer to all his
problems — the reason why he
didn’t even have to have ideas.
He made the discovery that
every science-fiction enthusiast
has made lately. He discovered
that fact has caught up with fic-
tion! All the bright ideas had
been turned into reality, and
there wasn’t anything new to be
done in the field.

After all, what had science fic-
tion predicted? Why, atomics,
television, radar, rockets to the
planets, robots — and such things.
And those that hadn’t been fully
realized were just around the
corner now. Of course, there was
time travel and immortality-

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

but those were just fantasies,
anyhow.

So he might as well go ahead
and keep writing about the psi
factor ; that didn’t take much
scientific thought ; and anyhow,
since he’d used up all his plots
on that, he could take a vacation !

Joe folded up his typewriter
and went over to see his old
friend, Doc, who’d gone ahead
and spent years learning the
things about science which fic-
tion had already predicted. Over
a couple of cool beers, Joe re-
vealed his discovery. “So — •

what’s the use?” he finished.
“With you boys having all the
answers — ”

“Which we got from you writ-
ers, of course,” Doe said slyly.
“Don’t forget, I was at the Con-
vention. Oh, well. Once upon a
time there was a caveman who
got tired of drawing pictures on
the walls. What magic was left
to draw? They had fire, they had
the how and arrow, and they had
polished flint. Somebody had
even invented clothes, so that the
women could keep the men
amused by sitting around guess-
ing about what if! There wasn’t
anything left to discover since
invention had caught up with
imagination. Our caveman fig-
ured he might as well go out of
business. He was lazy, too, Joe!”

Joe shook his head. “But it
isn’t the same. We’re living in a
world that’s advanced to the
point where it can do just about
anything. Why look at your place
here — electric razors, television,
self-defrosting refrigerator . . .”

“And that’s just what fools
you,” Doc told him. “We’ve
turned out to be clever at engi-
neering. We can make almost any
kind of a gadget. But when you
get right down to it, that isn’t
saying much for our science.
When we build things, we really
don’t know how they work, still.
Oh, we’ve got fancy explanations
of them — high-sounding phrases
and involved mathematics. But
eventually every one of those ex-
planations works down to a level
where we don’t know what’s go-
ing on. Take that television set?
How does the cathode ray tube
work ?”

“Simple enough. Even I know
that. You take a heated filament
which gives off electrons, and
you accelerate them by means of
an electric field — ”

“Hold on!” Doc cut off the
flood of words Joe had picked up
from explaining things he didn’t
understand to readers who knew
less. “Let’s get down to funda-
mentals. What’s an electron?
And how does an electric field
accelerate one?”

He watched Joe struggle with

SOLUTION UNKNOWN

that, knowing that there was no
way 'to say what an electron was
made of,, because there simply
weren't words in the dictionary
to describe it. Then he grinned.
“Joe, what’s the first thing they
teach you about writing — -style,
that is?.”

“Why — why, to get rid o'f the
adjectives, I g.uess, and stick to
strong nouns and verbs. But
that’s elementary stuff!”

“Sure — and so is science, to-
day. And the funny thing is,
that’s just what we are begin-
ning to learn — science has finally
come to the conclusion that the
only thing we can do is to be
satisfied by describing what the
electron does. They tell us now
that there is no meaning in ask-
ing what the electron is. No ad-
jectives, just what it does! In
our case, we mean we’re limited
to actions and properties that
can be measured.”

He was wound up now, and
went on. They could state the
mass of an electron, and what
its charge was, as well as its
rough size. They could describe
what it did in an electric field.
For example, they measured the
charge on an electron by saying
that if you took two electrons
and put them a certain distance
apart, that they would be re-
pelled by a certain force, and
that could be measured — hence,

they knewhow much charge was
on the electron.

But it didn’t say what the
charge was. That, according to
modern science, was something
they couldn’t ask. Questions
could only be asked w'hich could
be answered by making measure-
ments. All they could say was
that the electric charge was some
property of an electron which
made it repel another electron.
There were no words which
allowed them to say that the elec-
tric charge is composed of some
sort of cosmic soup or nuclear
protoplasm.

How one electron repels an-
other was another question.
They could say that one electron
sets up an electric field in the
surrounding space, and the sec-
ond electron — swimming around
in this field — is caused to move
away from the first one.

“But what is an electric
field?” Joe asked. “You just
asked me that? I’ll bite, what is
it?”

Doc shrugged ruefully. “We
are not allowed to ask what an
electric field is, Joe — except to
bother people like you! We can
say that an electric field is a
region of space where certain
things happen which we can
measure. And that’s all. Here we
are with a disembodied electron

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

floating around in a region of
space which somehow causes the
electron to move in a certain di-
rection. We don’t try to explain
how or why. We simply use math
to describe the motion when in a
certain region of space with cer-
tain properties we call an electric
field. Period!”

“Sure, fine. And what does
that get you?” Joe poured an-
other beer, and thought it over.
“It gets you a fine reputation for
being cautious — but what is
there to grab onto? Practically,
I mean.”

“It is practical. It eliminates
all the metaphysics and intangi-
ble structures from the universe.
If we only talk about things we
can measure and describe events
that take place, we don’t have to
invent things like the ‘ether’ to
make up phoney explanations for
the way things operate.”

“It looks to me as if you boys
must spend all your time just
trying to figure out what ques-
tions make sense to ask, then,”
Joe suggested.

Doc nodded. “Right. But once
we learn how to ask the right
questions, we’re a lot closer to
finding the answers. Remember
how science suddenly started ex-
panding tremenduously about
fifty years ago? Much of that
was because we stopped chasing
our tails about what was an elec-

tric field and how charges acted
on each other over a distance and
began learning how to measure
and describe. Oh, it looks nice to
try to find why things happen ;
that seems to be the way to get
deeper into the reality of things.
But look at the results. Under the
new philosophy, we’ve got down
to working with the particles of
the atom and up to the stars to
find our answers. And we’ve
found out something — the fur-
ther we go, the less we know. For
every question answered, there
are a lot more popping up whose
solutions lie in the future. And
the really big questions still re-
main.”

“How did we get there? How
did the universe start? How did
the solar system shape up the
way it is? How did life begin on
this planet?” Joe reeled them off
while opening another beer.

“Exactly. Those questions are
asked by people who don’t know
either science or science fiction.”
Doc held out his glass and
frowned when Joe poured too
rapidly, bringing up a heavy
head. But he let it pass. “We’re
not sure yet what meaningful
questions are to be asked, some-
times. But we ask, and we form
tentative answers. We have a
theory that the universe began
as the explosion of a primeval

SOLUTION UNKNOWN

mass which eventually formed
the present galaxies out of the
coalescing and turbulent gases.
But we don’t ask what happened
before the explosion. Maybe that
isn’t a meaningful question.

“But since the universe does
appear to be expanding from a
single point, it certainly acts as
if it is in the process of explod-
ing. How do we know it really is
expanding? Well, the behavior of
light from the distant stars
makes it look that way. But sup-
pose there was some other ex-
planation for the way in which
the light behaves? We really
don’t know.”

He fell back, thinking and let-
ting his words come out lazily
around the smoke from his pipe.
There was the opposite extreme,
as opposed to the macrocosm.
How were the particles arranged
within an atomic nucleus, and
what forces were involved in
holding them together. Where
did cosmic rays come from, and
how were they produced? What
forces in the universe could give
a proton an energy of a thousand
billion electron volts? What were
sunspots, and what caused the
tremendous flares that were seen
to blaze out on the surface of the
sun?

And just what was the nature
of the forces between two bodies
of matter? How could the elec-

tron -here influence the motion
of one over there? How could
the sun exert control over the
motion of the planets, millions of
miles away. Maybe such electri-
cal and gravitational forces were
only myths, words which were
invented to describe events. May-
be sometime they would speak of
the geometry of space being
altered by the presence of the
sun so that the planets just nat-
urally moved in what were nor-
mally considered curves instead
of straight lines.

“Then there’s life,” Joe said, a
bit thickly. “Old universe may be
tough, but what about life? Got
a plot for a story about immor-
tality that turns into insanity . . .
What’s life, anyhow?”

Doc shook his head. “You see?
A meaningless question, Joe — •
because you should have asked
it in ‘terms of function, and what
can be measured. But that’s what
makes the field so tough. We’ve
been held back in the study of
living things because we’-re still
trying to learn how to ask the
right questions — the questions
which will lead to answers and
make sense. And that’s the point
I’m really making — we just donH
know, yet. Fact hasn’t caught up
with fiction!”

It was like the lecture he’d de-
livered three weeks before. He

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

didn’t have the answers. What
was the difference between a liv-
ing and a non-living organism?
It was fairly easy in terms of the
larger animals and plants — but
the line began to get pretty fine
when trying to decide whether a
filterable virus was alive or not.

How did a plant or animal de-
velop from the original seed or
egg? The little genes inside the
cell recorded it somehow, but no-
body had any knowledge of how
those genes passed on their in-
structions. What was conscious-
ness, and how was a man aware
of the universe and himself?
How did the nervous system
work? The electroencephalo-
graph and the study of nervous
reflex systems were nice, but no-
body knew how the nerve im-
pulses combined to form the pat-
tern of awareness and behavior
known as consciousness.

What about the mind below
the level of the conscious state?
There were words such as “sub-
conscious” to describe certain ac-
tivities, and they were useful
words within limits. But they
didn’t tell how the mechanism
worked. What happened in the
nervous system when a memory
was recorded; why could a
thought be remembered one day
and forgotten the next, then re-
membered years later; why can
forgotten memories have tre-

mendous effects upon current ac-
tions? Psychology had plenty of
questions, and many which
might have to be reshaped to
have any meaning.

Even medicine had its ques-
tions, though the new drugs had
made them seem less important
in the press. What caused the
common cold? Why couldn’t men
regenerate arms and legs like
lower animals? What caused
cancer — or a dozen other mala-
dies— and how was it cured?
What about the mental diseases ?

Could behavior be inherited?
Was it possible to say that a per-
son inherited a certain type of
personality, or that a man was
born with criminal instincts?
Were there really such things as
instincts? Some people tried to
claim that behavior was entirely
learned, and that nothing in the
form of ideas of how to behave
came from the genes in the egg
cell. Yet spiders spun very com-
plicated webs without being
taught; how did a certain type of
spider know what kind of web
his type of spider was supposed
to spin? It was one of the big
riddles of nature.

Doc turned toward Joe again.
“We don’t know anything, yet,”
he finished. “We’re in the kin-
dergarten of science. All over the
world, men are working to find

SOLUTION UNKNOWN

the answers — even to find how
to ask the questions. Each work-
er helps us get a bit closer to the
answer. Some questions are near-
ly solved — -others will require a
very long time before we can
even know where to attack the
problem.

“But given enough time, most
of the questions will be an-
swered. Look at how little time
we’ve had up to now, and then
consider the thousands of years
ahead of us. You can’t say we’ll
never find the answers to these
problems. All you can say is that
for a long, long time, there’ll be
more (unsolved problems than
solved ones. The frontier of the
unknown always advances faster
than the extent of knowledge.”

He relit his pipe, and studied
the pleasant night around him.
“It’s going to be a richer world,
Joe — because we’ve found that
even the most apparently useless
piece of knowledge can turn into

a gold mine, as far as human life
is concerned. And if you’ll dig
into that unknown frontier, you
can still build as many utopias
as you want. Science won’t catch
up with fiction — -not unless fic-
tion gets too lazy to use what
science does know, and think!’’

Joe nodded solemnly, and fell
forward "off his. chair. Doc saw
that he’d managed to get drunk
off the beer.

Well, maybe it was just as
well. With a hangover tomorrow,
he’d have a perfect excuse for
not writing. And by the next
day, he’d be mouthing the same
old cliche about fact catching up
with fiction. That was one piece
of fiction no amount of facts
would put down, apparently!

“What the deuce makes men
like that, anyhow?” Doc asked
the air, as he began to try to
rouse Joe. He suspected that
would be one of the last questions
to be solved.

STRAIGT, PLACE AND SHOW

Nobody agreed on the September line-up, except about MOON-
BLIND — with the following odd results as to best-liked stories:

1. MOON-BLIND by van Lhin 1.21

2. MATTER OF FAITH by Sherman 3.36

3. THE FENCE by Simak 3.58

4. REVISITOR by Thomas 4.61

5. OFFICIAL RECORD by Pratt 5.00

And to help make this more accurate, we’d appreciate it if you'd list
stories in order somewhere in your letters. It helps, and we'd like to
know just what you liked!

BOOK REVIEWS:

SCIENCE: Fact and Fiction

GEORGE O. SMITH

Every now and then I wonder if it is not about time to look up a
new name for our favorite type of reading matter. This question strikes
me every time I get a couple of brand new novels and a couple of the
old standbys in the same batch. There is quite a difference in the mode
of attack, and most of the change has been for the good.

Some of us old timers will recall the days when we tried to> claim
that science fiction was a sugar coating for the education. Some of
the magazines even went so far as to claim their stories were all based
upon scientific fact, ignoring the common sense angle completely.
After all, writers write and inventors invent, and if someone could
build a matter transmitter or a time machine from the bafflegab in one
of the earlier stories the author would have been too busy making a
mint of dough out of his invention to bother with flogging a typewriter
for a couple of cents per word and so the tale would not have been
written in the first place.

Remember Kieth Winton, in Fredric Brown's What Mad Universe?
who found a magazine called “Surprising Stories" that was filled with
straight adventure tales, because space travel and modern science had
brought home the facts of the far planets and forced the writers to
write about people, places, and events that actually existed.

Well, we haven’t been there yet, but we are less inclined to make
our gadget and our bizzare description of the far planets more im-
portant than the people. We have a nice, new form of attack. We
have discovered people. Our Hero no longer prefers his laboratory to
his favorite blonde. He does not kiss his magnetron instead of his girl.

I am glad to seo today’s science fiction is no longer trying to purvey
a lot of balderdash as the latest declassified dope right out of Oak
Ridge, White Sands, or N. R. L. Let the big boys go ahead quietly and
design us a nice, bright, new pushbutton world which we can populate
with human beings who are as pleasantly nasty or loveable as the
case may be.

I’m all for it. It makes for better reading material.

SANDS OF MARS, by Arthur C. Clarke. Gnome Press, $2.75. • This is
an example of what I was talking about above. This is a very smooth
tale about a writer who goes to Mars to do a news reporting job and

finally stays because he has been bitten with the pioneer bug. There
is more of the Sinclair Lewis type of character study in this than we
have been used to in science fiction, and a great deal less of the
slapdash action.

The author, of course, is the same Clarke of the Exploration of Space,
and he should know whereof he speaks regarding planetary coloniza-
tion. The plot and the whole thing has been carefully thought out and
well written. If any objection can be voiced, I object to the process
whereby Clarke succeeds in solving the problem of supplying enough
air for the planet. Just a little too close to the Divine Intervention,
known in lit’r’y circles as “Legislating your hero out of trouble.’’

TAKEOFF, by Cyril M. Kornbluth. Doubleday, $2.75. • Cyril K. being
an old hand at plot complications, takes a different tack. His Takeoff
is as plot involved as a bowline tied on a bight.

A Dr. Novak is hired as a ceramics specialist for a spacecraft pro-
ject that looks as though it had no visible means of support. This
slightly shady appearance is complicated by Dr. Novak’s discovery
that some of the boxes of material have U. S. Government stamps on
them, and so forth. About this time Dr. Novak gets involved with women,
political intrigue, and financial maneuverings and he stays involved
until the first spacecraft takes off. The highly complicated plot comes
unglued with one of the neatest little twists that I wouldn't give away
on a bet. Kornbluth succeeded in tying up all the loose ends, too,
which is no small feat with any razzle-dazzle plot.

THE CRYSTAL HORDE, by John Taine. Fantasy Press, $3.00 • This is
one of the old-timers. It once appeared in one of the Amazing Stories
Quarterlies under the title White Lily. Unfortunately, what was once a
good story about an utterly alien life form of crystalline structure has
been- buggered up by about 25,000 words of ideological warfare be-
tween the Chinese communists and the Nationals. Since this shooting
match has nothing to do with our crystalline life form, I can’t imagine
why it was stuffed in. If you buy it, rip out the middle third. You won't
miss it all.

Damn’ shame, I say.

ROBOTS HAVE NO TAILS, by Henry Kutt — er, I mean — Lewis Padgett.
Gnome Press, $2.75. • Any resemblance between the title of this collec-
tion and the story material within are as remote as Gallagher is from
his inventions. This is the Last Of The Mad Scientists, Gallhager himself,
who invents things under the alfluence of incohol and then can’t re-
member what they’re to be used for. Frankly, I did not finish the book
but this is not because I didn’t like it. Gallagher’s liquor organ done
me in and I got drunk by induction. But I'll finish it yet. So help me.
And I’ll still like it.

THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES— 1 952. Edited by Everett F.
Bleiler & T. E. Dikty. Frederick Fell, $2.95. • Aside from the comment
that 1952 was not over by the time this anthology appeared, I have
no complaints. Messrs Bleiler & Dikty may just be dating their anthologies
like the automobile industry dates their models. In these days of Lord
knows how many magazines available, the anthology seems to have
come into its own. I'll let folks like Bleiler & Dikty edit the editors
selections, since I have not time to read every magazine.

For the non-fiction section, which is one of the possible reasons
why science fiction is beginnings to focus its attention on people rather
than the gadgets, we have a compilation of articles by men who know
what space travel is all about from the technical aspect. As I said
above, we have retreated a bit and it's a good thing. There is havdly
any sense in writing about the design of our spacecraft when there
are men who have the spacecraft all drawn out and in blueprints.

ACROSS THE SPACE FRONTIER, a Symposium. Viking Press, $3.95.
* On 12 October 1951, at the Hayden Planetarium, the First Annual
Symposium On Space Travel was held. A number of learned men who
have been working on space travel and its problems delivered a series
of lectures. It was evident that the men of this group had already
found the answers to a number of questions that the average non-
professional did not know existed as problems. A few weeks later, these
lectures were printed in a special issue of Collier's, each lecture ex-
panded and illustrated. The Collier's artilces, expanded once more,
have been put in book form.

Across The Space Frontier contains considerable material that has
not appeared elsewhere. Comprehensive discussions about the orbital
space station, a lengthy talk about the medical aspect of space
travel, and even a talk on the legal angle of space travel, coloniza-
tion, and territorial claims make this book a valuable addition to your
library.

And speaking of an entirely different class of reading matter, I
have a bit of a science-fiction sort of thing to report. This literature is
the manufacturer's catalogs that pass my desk while I am holding forth
on the other side of my schizophrenia as an engineer. I note with great
interest that one of the big mass-production components outfits is
making a plug-in magnetic memory cell for use with digital computers.
In the early days of science fiction, Our Hero used to build them one by
one with his lily white hands. Now he. can order them from a catalog.
Maybe this is why Our Hero has more time on his hands to seek out
the more interesting things in life.

Reminds me of a girl named Helen O’Loy —

100

EXILE

BY H. B. FYFE

ILLUSTRATED BY EMSH

The Dome of Eyes made it almost impossible for
Terrans to reach the world of Tepokt. For those
who did land there, there was no returning
— only the bitterness of respect — and justice!

The Tepoktan student, whose
blue robe in George Kinton’s
opinion clashed with the dull
purple of his scales, twiddled a
three-clawed hand for attention.
Kinton nodded to him from his
place on the dais before the
group.

“Then you can give us no pre-
cise count of the stars in the
galaxy, George?”

Kinton smiled wrily, and ran
a wrinkled hand through his
graying hair. In the clicking Te-
poktan speech, his name came
out more like “Chortch.”

Questions like this had been
put to him often during the ten

years since his rocket had
hurtled through the meteorite
belt and down to the surface of
Tepokt, leaving him the only sur-
vivor. Barred off as they were
from venturing into space, the
highly civilized Tepoktans con-
stantly displayed the curiosity of
dreamers. in matters related to
the universe. Because of the veil
of meteorites and satellite frag-
ments whirling about their
planet, their astronomers had ac-
quired torturous skills but only
scraps of real knowledge.

“As I believe I mentioned fn
some of my recorded lectures,”
Kinton answered in their lan-

101

EXILE

103

guage, “the number is actually
as vast as it seems to those of
you peering through the Dome
of Eyes. The scientists of my
race have not yet encountered
any beings capable of estimating
the total.”

He leaned back and scanned
the faces of his interviewers,
faces that would have been odd-
ly humanoid were it not for the
elongated snouts and pointed,
sharp-toothed jaws. The average
Tepoktan was slightly under
Kinton’s height of five-feet-ten,
with a long, supple trunk. Under
the robes their scholars affected,
the shortness of their two bowed
legs was not obvious; but the
sight of the short, thick arms
carried high before their chests
still left Kinton with a feeling
of misproportion.

He should be used to it after
ten years, he thought, but even
the reds or purples of the scales
or the big teeth seemed more
natural.

“I sympathize with your cu-
riosity,” he added. “It is a mar-
vel that your scientists have
managed to measure the dis-
tances of so many stars.”

He could tell that they were
pleased by his admiration, and
wondered yet again why any
little show of approval by him
was so eagerly received. Even
though he was the first stellar

visitor in their recorded history,
Kinton remained conscious of the
fact that in many fields he was
unable to offer the Tepoktans any
new ideas. In one or two ways,
he believed, no Terran could
teach their experts anything.

“Then will you tell us, George,
more about the problems of your
first space explorers?” came an-
other question.

Before Kinton had formed his
answer, the golden curtains at
the rear of the austerely simple
chamber parted. Klaft, the Te-
poktan serving the current year
as Kinton’s chief aide, hurried
toward the dais. The twenty-odd
members of the group fell silent
on their polished stone benches,
turning their pointed visages to
follow Klaft’s progress.

The aide reached Kinton and
bent to hiss and cluck into the
latter’s ear in what he presum-
ably considered an undertone.
The Terran laboriously spelled
out the message inscribed on the
limp, satiny paper held before his
eyes. Then he rose and took one
step toward the waiting group.

“I regret I shall have to con-
clude this discussion,” he an-
nounced. “I am informed that
another ship from space has
reached the surface of Tepokt.
My presence is requested in case
the crew are of my own planet.”

104

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

Klaft excitedly skipped down
to lead the way up the aisle, but
Kinton hesitated. Those in the
audience were scholars or offi-
cials to whom attendance at one
of Kinton’s limited number of
personal lectures was awarded as
an honor.

They would hardly learn any-
thing from him directly that was
not available in recordings made
over the course of years. The
Tepoktan scientists, historians,
and philosophers had respect-
fully but eagerly gathered every
crumb of information Kinton
knowingly had to offer — and
some he thought he had forgot-
ten. Still ... he sensed the dis-
appointment at his announce-
ment.

“I shall arrange for you to
await my return here in town,”
Kinton said, and there were mur-
murs of pleasure.

Later, aboard the jet heli-
copter that was basically like
those Kinton remembered using
on Terra twenty light years
away, he shook his head at
Klaft’s respectful protest.

“But George! It was enough
that they were present when you
received the news. They can talk
about that the rest of their lives !
You must not waste your
strength on these people who
come out of curiosity.”

Kinton smiled at his aide’s

earnest concern. Then he turned
to look out the window as he re-
called the shadow that underlay
such remonstrances. He estimat-
ed that he was about forty-eight
now, as nearly as he could tell
from the somewhat longer revo-
lutions of Tepokt. The time
would come when he would age
and die. Whose wishes would
then prevail?

Maybe he was wrong, he
thought. Maybe he shouldn’t
stand in the way of their biolo-
gists and surgeons. But he’d
rather be buried, even if that
left them with only what he
could tell them about the human
•body.

To help himself forget the
rather .preoccupied manner in
which some of the Tepoktan sci-
entists occasionally eyed him, he
peered down at the big dam of
the hydro-electric project being
completed to Kinton’s design.
Power from this would soon
light the town built to house the
staff of scientists, students, and
workers assigned to the insti-
tute organized about the person
of Kinton.

Now, there was an example of
their willingness to repay him
for whatever help he had been,
he reflected. They hadn’t needed
that for themselves.

In some ways, compared to

EXILE

105

those of Terra, the industries of
Tepokt were underdeveloped. In
the first place, the population
was smaller and had different
standards of luxury. In the sec-
ond, a certain lack of drive re-
sulted from the inability to
break out into interplanetary
space. Kinton had been inexplic-
ably lucky to have reached the
surface even in a battered hulk.
The 6hell of meteorites was at
least a hundred miles thick and
constantly shifting.

“We do not know if they have
always been meteorites,” the
Tepoktans had told Kinton, “or
whether part of them come from
a destroyed satellite ; but our ob-
servers have proved mathematic-
ally that no direct path through
them may be predicted more than
a very short while in advance.”

Kinton turned away from the
window as he caught the glint
of Tepokt’s sun upon the hull of
the spaceship they had also built
for him. Perhaps . . . would it
be fair to encourage the new-
comer to attempt the barrier?

For ten years, Kinton had
failed to work up any strong de-
sire to try it. The Tepoktans
called the ever-shifting lights
the Dome of Eyes, after a myth
in which each tiny satellite
bright enough to .be visible was
supposed to watch over a single
individual on the surface. Like

their brothers on Terra, the na-
tive astronomers could trace
their science back to a form of
astrology; and Kinton often told
them jokingly that he felt no
urge to risk a physical encounter
with his own personal Eye.

The helicopter started to de-
scend, and Kinton remembered
that the city named in his mes-
sage was only about twenty miles
from his home. The brief twi-
light of Tepokt was passing by
the time he set foot on the land-
ing field, and he paused to look
up.

The brighter stars visible from
this part of the planet twinkled
back at him, and he knew that
each was being scrutinized by
some amateur or professional
astronomer. Before an hour had
elapsed, most of them would be
obscured by the tiny moonlets,
some of which could already be
seen. These could easily be mis-
taken for stars or the other five
planets of the system, but in a
short while the tinier ones in
groups would cause a celestial
haze resembling a miniature
Milky Way.

Klaft, who had descended first,
leaving the pilot to bring up the
rear, noticed Kinton’s pause.

“Glory glitters till it is known
for a curse,” he remarked, quot-
ing a Tepoktan proverb often ap-

106

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

plied by the disgruntled scien-
tists to the Dome of Eyes.

Kinton observed, however,
that his aide also stared upward
for a long moment. The Tepok-
tans loved speculating about the
unsolvable. They had even found-
ed clubs to argue whether two
satellites had been destroyed or
only one.

Half a dozen officials hastened
up to escort the party to the
vehicle awaiting Kinton. Klaft
succeeded in quieting the lesser
members of the delegation so
that Kinton was able to learn a
few facts about the new arrival.
The crash had been several hun-
dred miles away, but someone
had thought of the hospital in
this city which was known to
have a doctor rating as an expert
in human physiology. The sur-
vivor— only one occupant of the
wreck, alive or dead, had
been discovered — had accord-
ingly been flown here.

With a clanging of bells, the
little convoy of ground cars
drew up in front of the hospital.
A way was made through the
chittering crowd around the
entrance. Within a few minutes,
Kinton found himself looking
down at a pallet upon which lay
another Terran.

A man! he thought, then
curled a lip wrily at the sudden,
unexpected pang of disappoint-

ment. Well, he hadn’t realized
until then what he was realty
hoping for!

The spaceman had been
cleaned up and bandaged by the
native medicos. Kinton saw that
his left thigh was probably
broken. Other dressings suggest-
ed cracked ribs and lacerations
on the head and shoulders. The
man was dark-haired but pale of
skin, with a jutting chin and a
nose that had been flattened in
some earlier mishap. The flaring
set of his ears somehow empha-
sized an overall leaness. Even in
sleep, 'his mouth was thin and
hard.

“Thrown across the controls
after his belt broke loose?” Kin-
ton guessed.

“I bow to your wisdom,
George,” said the plump Tepok-
tan doctor who appeared to be
in charge.

Kinton could not remember
him, but everyone on the planet
addressed the Terran by the
sound they fondly thought to be
his first name.

“This is Doctor Chuxolkhee,”
murmured Klaft.

Kinton made the accepted ges-
ture of greeting with one hand
and said, “You seem to have
treated him very expertly.”

Chuxolkhee ruffled the scales
around his neck with pleasure.

EXILE

107

“I have studied Terran physi-
ology,” he admitted complacent-
ly. “From your records and
drawings, of course, George, for
I have not yet had the good for-
tune to visit you.”

“We must arrange a visit
soon,” said Kinton. “Klaft
will — ”

He broke off at the sound from
the patient.

“A Terran!” mumbled the in-
jured man.

He shook his head dazedly,
tried to sit up, and subsided with
a groan.

Why, he looked scared when
he saw me, thought Kinton.

“You’re all right now,” he said
soothingly. “It’s all over and
you’re in good hands. I gather
there were no other survivors of
the crash?”

The man stared curiously. Kin-
ton realized that his own lan-
guage sputtered clumsily from
his lips after ten years. He tried
again.

“My name is George Kinton.
I don’t blame you if I’m hard to
understand. You see, I’ve been
here ten years without ever hav-
ing another Terran to speak to.”

The spaceman considered that
for a few breaths, then seemed
to relax.

“A1 Birken,” he introduced
himself laconically. “Ten years?”

“A little over,” confirmed Kin-

ton. “It’s extremely unusual that
anything gets through to the
rsurface, let alone a spaceship.
What happened to you?”

Birken’s stare was suspicious.
“Then you ain’t heard about
the new colonies? Naw — you
musta come here when all the
planets were open.”

“We had a small settlement on
the second planet,” Kinton told
him. “You mean there are new
Terran colonies?”

“Yeah. Jet-hoppers spreadin’
all over the other five. None of
the land-hungry poops figured a
way to set down here, though, or
they’d be creepin’ around this
planet too.”

“How did you happen to do
it? Run out of fuel?”

The other eyed him for a few
seconds before dropping his
gaze. Kinton was struck with
sudden doubt. The outposts of
civilization were followed by less
desirable developments as a gen-
eral rule — prisons, for instance.
He resolved to be wary of the
visitor.

“Ya might say I was explor-
in’,” Birken replied at last.
“That’s why I come alone.
Didn’t want nobody else hurt if
I didn’t make it. Say, how bad
am I banged up?”

Kinton realized guiltily that
the man should be resting. He

108 SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

had lost track of the moments
he had wasted in talk while the
others with him stood attentive-
ly about.

He questioned the doctor brief-
ly and relayed the information
that Birke.n’s leg was broken but
that the other injuries were not
serious.

“They’ll fix you up,” he as-
sured the spaceman. “They’re
quite good at it, even if the sight
of one does make you think a
little of an iguana. Rest up, now;
and I’ll come back again when-
you’re feeling better.”

For the next three weeks, Kin-
ton flew back and forth from his
own town nearly every day. He
felt that he should not neglect
the few meetings which were the
only way he could repay the Te-
poktans for all they did for him.
On the other hand, the chance
to see and talk with one of his
own kind drew him like a mag-
net to the hospital.

The doctors operated upon
Birken’s leg, inserting a metal
rod inside the bone by a method
they had known before Kinton
described it. The new arrival ex-
pected to be able to walk, with
care, almost any day; although
the pin would have to be removed
after the bone had healed. Mean-
while, Birken seemed eager to
learn all Kinton could tell him
about the planet, Tepokt.

About himself, he was re-
markably retice'nt. Kinton wor-
ried about this.

“I think we should not expect
too much of this Terran,” he
warned Klaft uneasily. “You,
too, have citizens who do not al-
ways obey your laws, who some-
times . . . that is — ”

“Who are born to -die under
the axe, as we say,” interrupted
Klaft, as if to ease the concern
plain on Kinton’s face. “In other
words, criminals. You suspect
this Albirken is such a one,
George?”

“It is not impossible,” admit-
ted Kinton unhappily. “He will
tell me little about himself. It
may be that he was caught in
Tepokt’s gravity while fleeing
from justice.”

To himself, he wished he had
not told Birken about the space-
ship. He didn’t think the man
exactly believed his explanation
of why there was no use taking
off in it.

Yet he continued to spend as
much time as he could visiting
the other man. Then, as his heli-
copter landed at the city airport
one gray dawn, the news reached
him.

“The other Terran has gone,”
Klaft reported, turning from the
breathless messenger as Kinton
followed him from the machine.

EXILE

109

“Gone? Where did they take
him?”

Klaft looked uneasy, embar-
rassed. Kinton repeated his ques-
tion, wondering about the group
of armed police on hand.

“In the night,” Klaft hissed
and clucked, “when none would
think to watch him, they tell me
. . . and quite rightly, I think — ”

“Get on with it, Klaft!
Please!”

“In the night, then, Albirken
left the chamber in which he lay.
He can walk some now, you
know, because of Dr. Chuxol-
khee’s metal pin. He — he stole a
ground car and is gone.”

“He did?” Kinton had an
empty feeling in the pit of his
stomach. “Is it known where he
went? I mean ... he has been
curious to see some of Tepokt.
Perhaps — ”

He stopped, his own words
braying in his ears. Klaft was
clicking two claws together, a
sign of emphatic disagreement.

“Albirken,” he said, “was soon
followed by three police consta-
bles in another vehicle. They
found him heading in the direc-
tion of our town.”

“Why did he say he was travel-
ing that way?” asked Kinton,
thinking to himself of the space-
ship! Was the man crazy?

“He did not say,” answered
Klaft expressionlessly. “Taking

them by surprise, he killed two
of the constables and injured
the third before fleeing with one
of their spears.”

“What?”

Kinton felt his eyes bulging
with dismay.

“Yes, for they carried only the
short spears of their authority,
not expecting to need fire weap-
ons.”

Kinton looked from him to the
messenger, noticing for the first
time that the latter was an un-
der-officer of police. He shook his
head distractedly. It appeared
that his suspicions concerning
Birken had been only too accu-
rate.

Why was it one like him who
got through? he asked himself
in silent anguish. After ten
years. The Tepoktans had been
thinking well of Terrans, but
now —

He did not worry about his
own position. That was well
enough established, whether or
not he could again hold up his
head before the purple-scaled
people who had been so generous
to him.

Even if they had been aroused
to a rage by the killing, Kinton
told himself, he would not have
been concerned about himself. He
had reached a fairly ripe age for
a spaceman. In fact, he had al-

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

ready enjoyed a decade of bor-
rowed time.

But they were more civilized
than that wanton murderer, he
realized.

He straightened up, forcing
back his early-morning weari-
ness.

“We must get into the air
immediately,” he told Klaft.
“Perhaps we may see him before
he reaches—”

He broke off at the word
“spaceship” but he noticed a re-
served expression on Klaft’s
pointed face. His aide had prob-
ably reached a conclusion similar
to his own.

They climbed back into the
cabin and Klaft gave brisk or-
ders to the lean young pilot. A
moment later, Kinton saw the
ground outside drop away.

Only upon turning around did
he realize that two armed Tepok-
tans had materialized in time to
follow Klaft inside.

One was a constable but the
other he recognized for an officer
of some rank. Both wore slung
across their chests weapons re-
sembling long-barreled pistols
with large, oddly indented butts
to fit Tepoktan claws. The con-
stable, in addition, carried a
contraption with a quadruple
tube for launching tiny rockets
no thicker than Kinton’s thumb.
These, he knew, were loaded

with an explosive worthy of re-
spect on any planet 'he had heard
of.

To protect him, he wondered.
Or to get Birken?

The pilot headed the craft
back toward Kinton’s town in
the brightening sky of early day.
Long before the buildings of
Kinton’s institute came into
view, they received a radio mes-
sage about Birken.

“He has been seen on the road
passing the dam,” Klaft reported
soberly after having been called
to the pilot’s compartment. “He
stopped to demand fuel from
some maintenance workers, but
they had been warned and fled.”

“Couldn’t they have seized
him?” demanded Kinton, his tone
sharp with the worry he endeav-
ored to control. “He has that
spear, I suppose; but he is only
one and injured.”

Klaft hesitated.

“Well, couldn’t they?”

The aide looked away, out one
of the windows at some sun-
dyed clouds ranging from pink
to orange. He grimaced and
clicked his showy teeth uncom-
fortably.

“Perhaps they thought you
might be offended, George,” he
answered at last.

Kinton settled back in the seat
especially padded to fit the con-
tours of his Terran body, and

EXILE

111

stared silently at the partition
behind the pilot.

In other words, he thought, .he
was responsible for Birken, who
was a Terran, one of his own
kind. Maybe they really didn’t
want to risk hurting his feelings,
but that was only part of it.
They were leaving it up to him
to handle what they considered
his private affair.

He wondered what to do. He
had no actual faith in the idea
that Birken was delirious, or act-
ing under any influence but that
of a criminally self-centered na-
ture.

"I shouldn’t have told him
about the ship!” Kinton mut-
tered, gnawing the knuckle of
his left thumb. “He’s on the run,
all right. Probably scared the
colonial authorities will trail him
right, down through the Dome of
Eyes. Wonder what he did?”

He caught himself and looked
around to see if he had been over-
heard. Klaft and the police offi-
cers peered from their respec-
tive windows, in calculated with-
drawal. Kinton, disturbed, tried
to remember whether he had
spoken in Terran or Tepoktan.

Would Birken listen if he tried
reasoning, he asked himself.
Maybe if he showed the man how
they had proved the unpredicta-
bility of openings through the
shifting Dome of Eyes —

An exclamation from the con-
stable drew his attention. He
rose, and room was made for him
at the opposite window.

In the distance, beyond the
town landing field they were now
approaching, Kinton saw a halt-
ed ground car. Across the plain
which was colored a yellowish
tan by a short, grass-like growth,
a lone figure plodded toward the
upthrust bulk of the spaceship
that had never flown.

“Never mind landing at the
town!” snapped Kinton. “Go di-
rectly out to the ship!”

Klaft relayed the command to
the pilot. The helicopter swept
in a descending curve across the
plain toward the gleaming hull.

As they passed the man be-
low, Birken looked up. He con-
tinued to limp along at a brisk
pace with the aid of what looked
like a short spear.

“Go down!” Kinton ordered.

The pilot landed about a hun-
dred yards from the spaceship.
By the time his passengers had
alighted, however, Birken had
drawn level with them, about
fifty feet away.

“Birken!’ shouted Kinton.
“Where do you think you’re go-
ing?”

Seeing that no one ran after
him, Birken slowed his pace, but
kept walking toward the ship.

112

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

He watched them over his shoul-
der.

“Sorry, Kinton,” he shouted
with no noticeable tone of regret.
“I figure I better travel on for
my health.”

“It’s not so damn healthy up
there!” called Kinton. “I told
you how there’s no clear path — •”

“Yeah, yeah, you told me. That
don’t mean I gotta believe it.”

“Wait! Don’t you think they
tried sending unmanned rockets
up? Every one was struck and
exploded.”

Birken showed no more change
of expression than if the other
had commented on the weather.

Kinton had stepped forward
six or eight paces, irritated de-
spite his anxiety at the way Bir-
ken persisted in drifting before
him.

Kinton couldn’t just grab him
— bad leg or not, he could prob-
ably break the older man in two.

He glanced back at the Tepok-
tans beside the helicopter, Klaft,
the pilot, the officer, the constable
with the rocket weapon.

They stood quietly, looking
back at him.

The call for help that had risen
to his lips died there.

“Not their party,” he mut-
tered. He turned again to Birken,
who still retreated toward the
ship. “But he’ll only get himself
killed and destroy the ship! Or

if some miracle gets him
through,* that’s worse! He’s
nothing to turn loose on a civil-
ized colony again.”

A twinge of shame tugged
down the corners of his mouth
as he realized that keeping Bir-
ken here would also expose a
highly cultured people to an un-
scrupulous criminal who had al-
ready committed murder the very
first time he had been crossed.

“Birken!” he shouted. “For
the last time! Do you want me
to send them to drag you back
here?”

Birken stopped at that. He re-
garded the motionless Tepoktans
with a derisive sneer.

“They don’t look too eager to
me,” he taunted.

Kinton growled a Tepoktan ex-
pression the meaning of which
he had deduced after hearing it
used by the dam workers.

He whirled to run toward the
helicopter. Hardly had he taken
two steps, however, when he saw
startled changes in the carefully
blank looks of his escort. The
constable half raised his heavy
weapon, and Klaft sprang for-
ward with a hissing cry.

By the time Kinton’s aging
muscles obeyed his impulse to
sidestep, the spear had already
hurtled past. It had missed him
by an error of over six feet.

EXILE

113

He felt his face flushing with
sudden anger. Birken was run-
ning as best he could toward the
spaceship, and had covered near-
ly half the distance.

K inton ran at the Tepoktans,
brushing aside the concerned
Klaft. He snatched the heavy
weapon from the surprised con-
stable.

He turned and raised it to his
chest. Because of the shortness
of Tepoktan arms, the launcher
was constructed so that the butt
rested against the chest with the
sighting loops before the eyes.
The little rocket tubes were
above head height, to prevent the
handler’s catching the blast.

The circles of the sights
weaved and danced about the
running figure. Kinton realized
to his surprise that the effort of
seizing the weapon had him pant-
ing. Or was it the fright at hav-
ing a spear thrown at him? He
decided that Birken had not come
close enough for that, and won-
dered if he was afraid of his
own impending action.

It wasn’t fair, he complained
to himself. The poor slob only
had a spear, and a man couldn’t
blame him for wanting to get
back to his own sort. He was
limping . . . hurt . . . how could
they expect him to realize — ?

Then, abruptly, his lips tight-
ened to a thin line. The sights

steadied on Birken as the latter
approached the foot of the lad-
der leading to the entrance port
of the spaceship.

Kinton pressed the firing stud.

Across the hundred-yard space
streaked four flaring little pro-
jectiles. Kinton, without exactly
seeing each, was aware of the
general lines of flight diverging
gradually to bracket the figure
of Birken.

One struck the ground beside
the man just as he set one foot
on the bottom rung of the ladder,
and skittered away past one fin
of the ship before exploding.
Two others burst against the
hull, scattering metal fragments,
and another puffed on the up-
right of the ladder just above
Birken’s head.

The spaceman was blown back
from the ladder. He balanced on
his heels for a moment with out-
stretched fingers reaching to-
ward the grips from which they
had been torn. Then he crumpled
into a limp huddle on the yellow-
ing turf.

Kinton sighed.

The constable took the weapon
from him, reloaded deftly, and
proffered it again. When the
Terran did not reach for it, the
officer held out a clawed hand to
receive it. He gestured silently,
and the constable trotted across

114 SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

the intervening ground to bend
over Birken.

“He is dead,” said Klaft when
the constable straightened up
with a curt wave.

“Will . . . will you have some-
one see to him, please?” Kinton
requested, turning toVard the
helicopter.

'“Yes, George,” said Klaft.
“George . . .?”

“Well?”

“It would be very instructive
— that is, I believe Dr. Chuxol-
khee would like to — ”

“All right!” yielded Kinton,
surprised at the harshness of his
own voice. “Just tell him not to
bring around any sketches of the
various organs for a few
months!”

He climbed into the helicopter
and slumped into his seat. Pres-
ently, he was aware of Klaft edg-
ing into the seat across the aisle.
He looked up.

“The police will stay until cars
from town arrive. They are com-
ing now,” said his aide.

Kinton stared at his hands,
wondering at the fact that they
were not shaking. He felt deject-
ed, empty, not like a man who
had just been at a high pitch of
excitement.

“Why did you not let him go,
George?”

“What? Why . . . why ... he

would have destroyed the ship
you worked so hard to build.
There is no safe path th-rough
the Dome of Eyes.”

“No predictable path,” Klaft
corrected. “But what then? We
would have built you another
dhip, George, for it was you who
showed us how.”

Kinton flexed his fingers
slowly.

“He was just no good. You
know the murder he did here;
we can only guess what he did
among my own . . .-among Ter-
rans. Should he have a chance to
go back and commit more
crimes ?”

“I understand, George, the
logic of it,” said Klaft. “I meant
. . . it is not my place to say this
. . . but you seem unhappy.”
“Possibly,” grifhted Kinton
wrily.

“We, too, have criminals,” said
the aide, as gently as was pos-
sible in his clicking language.
“We do not think it necessary
to grieve for the pain they bring
upon themselves.”

“No, I suppose not,” sighed
Kinton. “I . . . it’s just — ”

He looked up at the pointed
visage, at the strange eyes re-
garding him sympathetically
from beneath the sloping, purple-
scaled forehead.

“It’s just that now I’m lonely
. . . again,” he said.

RELATIVITY

BY JOHN CHRISTOPHER

ILLUSTRATED BY EMSH

Time is such an unsatisfactory
yard-stick. If higher elements
can exist for only fractions of a
microsecond, they are still as real
as anything else. Only our time
is too limited for understanding.

Henry DeMarr and Walter
Stevanage,- physicists, shook
hands on the edge of the air-
strip. In this South Pacific heat,
tarmac would have run like oil,
and the blistered concrete burned
DeMarr’s feet through the soles
of his shoes. He shifted uncom-
fortably, listening regretfully to
the cool anger of the surf, less
than half a mile away.

The official photographer scut-
tled away.

“Well, it’s all set, Hank,”
Stevanage said wearily. “Every
atoll for miles is a nest of Gei-
gers, fluoroscopes, automatic
cameras and God knows what. I
think the Army has even brought
a couple of telescopes.”

DeMarr grinned. “Funny if it
doesn’t go off!”

Stevanage shook his head.
“Oh, it’ll go off all right. But
how much ? That’s what is worry-
ing me. It’s so much more power-
ful than the others we’ve tested.
If it sets off that helium chain

1 1<S

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

reaction . . . One more nova for
the astronomers around Sirius.”
DeMarr said, “If I were you
I’d slip along to the beach and
have a nice, cool swim. I wish I
could. This heat kills me. I
thought Florida was bad
enough.”

“You’ll be cool at twenty thou-
sand feet,” Stevanage said. “I
would like a swim, but there
isn’t really time. I’ll be watching
for that mushroom.” He shifted
angrily. “This concrete!”

“I still don’t really know why
I’m going up,” DeMarr said.
“The crew can handle the instru-
ments as well as I can and
there’s not much chance of get-
ting anything useful from direct
observation.”

“I’d like to get inside that
mushroom,” Stevanage said
wistfully. “In an astral body or
something. I’d like to see just
what happens in there as she
blows.”

A brisk voice behind them
spoke. “Why, Professor, it’s
only dust in there, isn’t it?”
They turned around.

“Ah, Squadron Leader Pe-
thick,” DeMarr said. “Are we
ready for the sky yet?”

Pethick nodded. “Almost.”
Stevanage said quietly, “It’s
far from being ‘only dust.’ This
bomb builds up as well as de-
stroys. Our atomic table stops

at 93. In that cloud there may be
elements much higher than that;
elements whose existence we can
only guess at.”

Surprisingly, Pethick said,
“But unstable, Professor? Aren’t
they by their nature bound to
break down very quickly?”

Stevanage looked at him with
vague approval.

“Belatively unstable,” he
agreed. “The relativity of sta-
bility in elements is bound up
with time, of course. Lead is
more stable than uranium be-
cause it takes much longer to
break down. But we can’t say it
never will break down. And time
is such an unsatisfactory yard-
stick. If high elements exist in
that cloud you are going to set
off, even if only for a fraction
of a second, their existence is as
real as this frightful concrete we
are standing on.”

“If I were you,” DeMarr said
dreamily, “I’d forget it all and
have a swim. That surf’s a tor-
ture. Can’t we get up into some
cool air, Pethick?”

From the front of the plane a
•sergeant called, “Ready now,
sir.”

The two physicists shook
hands again, hastily.

“Don’t worry, Walter,” De-
Marr said. “I’ll bet you ten
pounds to a shilling there’s no

RELATIVITY

117

helium chain reaction, at all.”

Stevanage smiled wearily.
“You couldn’t lose on that, could
you?” he said. “Good luck,
Hank.”

The hot air swirled into still
hotter violence as the great
plane moved, ponderously grace-
ful, along the runway. Stevan-
age watched it dwindle in the
stiff, blue sky. Glancing at his
watch he walked slowly down to
the main observation post and
drank a long lemon squash, feel-
ing it drain right through his
pores in the inescapable heat.
Over the wireless he heard De-
Marr’s characteristic drawl.

“Circling now twenty-one
thousand feet above Nakubi.
Squadron Leader Pethick reports
all O.K. According to our time
there are fifty-five seconds be-
fore we detonate. Better check
your chronometers all around.
Coming up to thirty seconds
now.”

Stevanage adjusted his protec-
tive goggles and walked out to
gaze at the smudge on the hori-
zon that was Nakubi island. Be-
hind him he heard DeMarr’s
voice continuing its monotonous
counting.

"Ten seconds. Getting close
now. Five, four, three, two,
one . . .”

Flame rolled like a wave
across the southern sky.

Nobody knew quite how many
million years there had been a
garrison on Rakeeth. Once there
had been records, but records
exist only for observers and the
Banzei had long lost what inter-
est they had in the remote past.
Rakeeth, it was thought, had
been one of the original outposts
in the Plan, but since the Plan’s
inception thousands of suns had
been born and thousands died,
and to the Banzei only its results
and its application remained
real, and even they were begin-
ning to grow shadowy.

Once they had been proud;
with the pride of a race that had
swept to the furthest corners of
the universe, conquering and
learning, learning and conquer-
ing. Star after star had submit-
ted to their armadas and secret
after secret to their men of sci-
ence. From the secrets and the
conquests had grown the Plan,
and the vast generators that, all
around the periphery of the pos-
sible universe, sucked in and
cast back the vital energy that
wastes from all astronomical or-
ganisms. The pride of the Ban-
zei had been as wide as their
dominion. Entropy was con-
quered ; the universe preserved
forever against the folly of its
own dissipation.

But for the life within the
universe there could be no such

118

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

maintaining of perfect stasis.

Gondu Eskar looked for the
last time from the main control
tower on Rakeeth. When the
Banzei first came, countless of
millions years before, it had been
the same — a dead planet circling
a dead sun. But, despite the
Plan, its contours had changed.
Energy still leaked, visible
enough in the lambent, flicker-
ing phosphorescence darting
from pinnacle and plain.

Beyond the flickering moun-
tains there was nothing; the
colorless eternity of outer space.
In the days of the triumph of
the Banzei ships had gone out
there, searching beyond the bor-
ders of infinity. They had come
back — some after thousands of
years — without success. There
was nothing they could reach.
While the Plan lived it had not
mattered. Now the Plan was dy-
ing.

Gondu Eskar heard the faint
swish as the door behind him
opened. He turned. It was Ral
Takin.

Ral Takin said soberly, “The
ship is ready. Everything has
been cleared. Are you ready?"

Gondu Eskar turned back and
stared at -the starless sky.

“Millions of years,” he said
'bitterly. “All wasted. A universe
decays at its heart and we, its

guardians, are called back to
help in futile, bickering wars,
while the mechanism runs
down.”

“It was wasted at the begin-
ning,” Ral Takin said philosoph-
ically. “What was the use of
putting a barrier around our-
selves like this? It was essen-
tially defeatist in its conception.
What reality is there in a -bil-
lion years of stasis? We kept our
universe from disintegrating
that long — -but for what?”

“It gave us time to breathe,”
Gondu Eskar said softly. “The
science that built the Plan had
potentialities that could have
done anything. The Plan secured
permanence. We could have gone
on from there. Instead we de-
cayed.”

“Gone where?” asked Ral Ta-
kin. “There were no directions.”

“No directions!” echoed Gon-
du Eskar. “What about those
strange artificial atoms they
played with for thousands of
years — those with less than a
hundred electrons? Wasn’t that
a clue? Before the Plan our uni-
verse was breaking down into
such elements. Then we might
have adapted ourselves to the
breakdown. Now . . . Where are
the scientists?”

Ral Takin said, “The universe
will probably still outlast us.
Now the Plan is being aban-

RELATIVITY

doned there is nothing to hold
us together. We will probably
relapse into little star cluster
empires, petty barbarisms. By
the time our generators fail, and
the fabric of the cosmos breaks
down into those light atoms you
spoke of, life and the Banzei
with it will have disappeared.”

“We could have done it!” Gon-
du Eskar repeated.

For the last time Gondu Eskar
looked out, through the thick,
transparent crystal under which
Banzei of the Rakeeth outpost
had brooded during the slow, in-
conceivable revolutions of the
stars. For the last time he felt
the chill of absolute nothingness.
Then he left, and the door closed
behind him on an empty cham-
ber. His race had abandoned its
last chance to save itself.

The plane taxied in and Pro-
fessor Henry DeMarr alighted
gratefully. He grinned at Stev-
anage as he came to meet him.

“There you are,” he said. “A
nice controlled blow-up. Just as
predicted. Now we can go back
home and spend a couple of
years getting our teeth into the
data.”

Stevanage said, “Yes. It
should be interesting.”

DeMarr looked at him closely.
"I believe you are disappointed
that we are not now just little

119

puffs of super-heated gas in that
new nova,” he remarked.

Stevanage’s face widened into
his melancholy smile.

“Not quite,” he said. “I was
just wishing once more I could
halt that explosion half-way for
just ten minutes. We might get
some really interesting stuff on
numbers 94 upwards that way.”
He stared southward, his eyes
brooding.

DeMarr shrugged. “There you
are,” he said. “If they exist they
must break down so fast that
lightning seems slow in compari-
son. For our purposes we can
wash them out.”

Stevanage said, “I thought for
a second I was becoming tele-
kinetic on a grand scale. I could
have sworn at one point the
cloud stopped growing. I was -be-
ginning to get excited when it
went on shooting up.”

DeMarr looked at him cu-
riously.

“I didn’t notice anything,” he
said. “It seemed g normal cloud
formation to me. The orthodox
mushroom. God, it’s hot! Come
on — let’s grab a drink and a
swim.”

His mind brightening at the
thought of the data still to come
in, Stevanage followed him.

In the south the dead cloud
spread unhurriedly across the
blue. .

It had been a tough day at the
lab, one of those days when noth-
ing seems able to go right. And,
of course, it had been precisely
the day Hammond, the Efficiency
inspector, would choose to stick
his nose in. Another mark in his
little notebook — and enough

marks like that meant a derat-
ing, and Control had a habit of

SiSAVv

122

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

sending derated labmen to Venus.
That wasn’t a criminal punish-
ment, but it amounted to the
same thing. Allen Lancaster had
no fear of it for himself ; the
sector chief of a Project was
under direct Control jurisdiction
rather than Efficiency, and Con-
trol was friendly to him. But
he’d hate to see young Rogers
get it — the boy had been married
only a week now.

To top the day off, a report
had come to Lancaster’s desk
from Sector Seven of the Proj-
ect. .Security had finally cleared
it for general transmission to
sector chiefs — and it was the
complete design of an electronic
valve on which some of the best
men in Lancaster’s own division,
Sector Thirteen, had been sweat-
ing for six months. There went
half a year’s work down the
drain, all for nothing, and Lan-
caster would have that much less
to show at the next Project reck-
oning.

He had cursed for several min-
utes straight, drawing the ad-
miring glances of his assistants.
It was safe enough for a high-
ranking labman to gripe about
Security — -in fact, it was more or
less expected. Scientists had
their privileges.

One of these was a private
three-room apartment. Another
was an extra liquor ration. To-

night, as he came home, Lan-
caster decided to make a dent in
the latter. He’d eaten at the com-
missary, as usual, but hadn’t
stayed to talk. All the way home
in the tube, he’d been thinking
of that whiskey and soda.

Now it sparkled gently in his
glass and he sighed, letting a
smile crease his lean homely
face. He was a tall man, a little
stooped, his clothes — uniform
and mufti alike — perpetually
rumpled. Solitary by nature, he
was still unmarried in spite of
the barchelor tax and had only
one son. The boy was ten years
old now, must be in the Youth
Guard ; Lancaster wasn’t sure,
never having seen him.

It was dark outside his win-
dows, but a glow above the walls
across the skyway told of the
city pulsing and murmuring be-
yond. He liked the quiet of his
evenings alone and had with-
stood a good deal of personal and
official pressure to serve in
various patriotic organizations.
“Damn it,” he had explained,
“I’m not doing routine work. I’m
on a Project, and I need relaxa-
tion of my own choosing.”

He selected a tape from his
library. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
lilted joyously about him as he
found a chair and sat down. Con-
trol hadn’t gotten around to
making approved lists of music

SECURITY

123

yet, though you’d surely never
hear Mozart in a public place.
Lancaster got a cigar from the
humidor and collapsed his long
gaunt body across chair and has-
sock. Smoke, whiskey, good mu-
sic— they washed his mind clean
of worry and frustration ; he
drifted off in a mist of un-
formed dreams. Yes, it wasn’t
such a bad world.

The mail-tube went ping! and
he opened his eyes, swearing.
For a moment he was tempted to
let the pneumo-roll lie where it
fell, but habit was too strong. He
grumbled his way over to the
basket and took it out.

The stamp across it jerked his
mind to wakefulness. OfiSal,
sEkret, fOr adresE OnlE — and a
Security seal!

After a moment he swallowed
his thumping heart. It couldn’t
be serious, not as far as he per-
sonally was concerned anyway.
If that had been the case, a
squad of monitors would have
been at the door. Not this mes-
sage tube ... He broke the seal
and unfolded the flimsy with
elaborate care. Slowly, he
scanned it. Underneath the offi-
cial letterhead, the words were
curt. “ Dis iz A ma.tr uv urjensE
and iz top sEkret. destrY Dis
letr and Du tUb kontAniN it.
.tUmOrO, 15 jUn, at 2130 ourz, U

wil gO tU Du obzurvatOrE, A
nit klub at 5730 viktOrE strEt,
and ask Du hedwAtr fOr A
mistr Berg. U wil asUm Dat hE
iz an Old frend uv yOrz and Dat
Dis iz A sOSal EveniN. Du
UZUal penaltEz ar invOkt fOr
fAlUr tU kompll.”

There was no signature. Lan-
caster stood for a moment, try-
ing to imagine what this might
be. There was a brief chill of
sweat on his skin. Then he sup-
pressed his emotions. He had
nothing to fear. His record was
clean and he wasn’t being ar-
rested.

His mind wandered rebellious-
ly off on something that had oc-
curred to him before. Admittedly
the new phonetic orthography
was more efficient than the old,
if less esthetic; but since little
of the earlier literature was
being re-issued in modern spell-
ing not too many books had ac-
tually been condemned as sub-
versive— only a few^ works on
history, politics, philosophy, and
the like, together with some sci-
entific texts restricted for se-
curity reasons; but one by one,
the great old writings were sent
to forgetfulness.

Well, these were critical times.
There wasn’t material and en-
ergy to spare for irrelevant de-
tails. No doubt when complete
peace was achieved there would

124

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

be a renaissance. Meanwhile he,
Lancaster, had his Euripedes and
Goethe and whatever else he
liked, or knew where to borrow
it.

As for this message, they
must want him for something
big, maybe something really in-
teresting.

Nevertheless, his evening was
ruined.

The Observatory was like
most approved recreation spots
—large and raucous, selling un-
rationed food and drink and
amusement at uncontrolled prices
of which the government took its
usual lion’s share. The angle in
this place was astronomy. The
ceiling was a blue haze a-glitter
with slowly wheeling constella-
tions, and the strippers began
with make-believe spacesuits.
There were some rather good
murals on the walls depicting
various stages of the conquest of
space. Lancaster was amused at
one of them. When he’d been
here three years ago, the first
landing on Ganymede had shown
a group of men unfurling a Ger-
man flag. It had struck in his
mind, because he happened to
know that the first expedition
there had actually been Russian.
That was all right then, seeing
that Germany was an ally at the
time. But now that Europe was

growing increasingly cold to the
idea of an American-dominated
world, the Ganymedean pioneers
were holding a good safe Stars
and Stripes.

Oh, well. You had to keep the
masses happy. They couldn’t see
that their sacrifices and the occa-
sional short wars were necessary
to prevent another real smashup
like the one seventy-five years
ago. Lancaster’s annoyance was
directed at the sullen foreign
powers and the traitors within
his own land. It was because of
them that science had to be
strait-jacketed by Security reg-
ulations.

The headwaiter bowed before
him. “I’m looking for a friend,”
said Lancaster. “A Mr. Berg.”

“Yes, sir. This way, please.”

Lancaster slouched after him.
He’d worn the dress uniform of
a Project officer, but he felt that
all eyes were on its deplorable
sloppiness. The headwaiter con-
ducted him between tables of
half-crocked customers — burly

black-uniformed Space Guards-
men, army and air officers, richly
clad industrialists and union
bosses, civilian leaders, their
wives and mistresses. The wait-
ers were all Martian slaves, he
noticed, their phosphorescent
owl-eyes smoldering in the dim
blue light.

He was ushered into a cur-

SECURITY

tained booth. There was an auto-
dispenser so that those using it
need not be interrupted by serv-
ants, and -an ultrasonic globe on
the table was already vibrating
to soundproof the region. Lan-
caster’s gaze went to the man
sitting there. In spite of being
short, he was broad-shouldered
and compact in plain gray eve-
ning pajamas. His face was
round arid freckled, almost che-
rubic, under a shock of sandy
hair, but there were merry little
devils in his eyes.

“Good evening, Dr. Lan-
caster,” he .said. “Please sit
down. What’ll you have?”

“Thanks, I’ll have Scotch and
soda.” Might as well make this
expensive, if the government was
footing the bill. And if this —
Berg — th'ought him un-American
for .drinking an imported bever-
age, what of it? The scientist
lowered himself into the seat op-
posite his host.

“I’m having the same, as a
matter of fact,” said Berg mild-
ly. He twirled the dial and
slipped a couple of five-dollar
coins into the dispenser slot.
When the tray was ejected, he
sipped his drink appreciatively
and looked across the rim of the
glass at the other man.

“You’re a high-ranking physi-
cist on the Arizona Project,

125

aren’t you, Dr. Lancaster?” he
asked.

That much was safe to admit.
Lancaster nodded.

“What is your work, pre-
cisely ?”

“You know I can’t tell you
anything like that.”

“It’s all right. Here are my
credentials.” Berg extended a
wallet. Lancaster scanned, the
cards and handed them back.

“Okay, so you’re in Security,”
he said. “I still can’t tell you
anything, not without proper
clearance.”

Berg chuckled amiably. “Good.
I’m glad to see you’re discreet.
Too many labmen don’t under-
stand the necessity of secrecy,
even between different branches
of the same organization.” With
a sudden whip-like sharpness:
“You didn't tell anyone about
this meeting, did you?”

“No, of course not.” Despite
himself, Lancaster was rattled.
“That is, a friend asked if I’d
care to go out with her tonight,
but I said I was meeting some-
one else.”

“That’s right.” Berg relaxed,
smiling. “All right, we may as
well get down to business. You’re
getting quite an honor, Dr. Lan-
caster. You’ve been tapped for
one of the most important jobs
in the Solar System.”

“Eh?” Lancaster’s eyes wid-

126

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

ened behind the contact lenses.
“But no one else has informed
me — ”

“No one of your acquaintance
knows of this. Nor shall they.
But tell me, you’ve done work on
dielectrics, haven’t you?”

“Yes. It’s been a sort of spe-
cialty of mine, in fact. I wrote
my thesis on the -theory of dielec-
tric polarization and since then
— no, that’s classified.”

“M-hm.” Berg took another
sip of his drink. “And right now
you’re just a cog in a computer-
development Project. You see. I
do know a few things about you.
However, we’ve decided — higher
up, you know, in fact on the very
top level — to take you off it for
the time being and put you on
this other job, one concerning
your specialty. Furthermore, you
won’t be part of a great organi-
zational machine, but very much
on your own. The fewer who
know of this, the better.”

Lancaster wasn’t sure he liked
that. Once the job was done —
if he were possessed of all infor-
mation on it — he might be in-
carcerated or even shot as a Se-
curity risk. Things like that had
happened. But there wasn’t much
he could do about it.

“Have no fears.” Berg seemed
to read his thoughts. “Your i’e-
ward may be a little delayed for
Security reasons, but it will

come in due time.” He leaned
forward, earnestly. “I repeat,
this project is top secret. It’s a
vital link in something much
bigger than you can imagine,
and few men below the President
even know of it. Therefore, the
very fact that you’ve worked on
it — that you’ve done any outside
work at all — must remain un-
known, even to the chiefs of y-our
Project.”

“Good stunt if you can do it,”
shrugged Lancaster. “But I’m
hot. Security keeps tabs on
everything I do.”

“This is how we’ll work it.
You have a furlough coming up
in two weeks, don’t you — a three
months’ furlough? Where were
you going?”

“I thought I’d visit the South-
west. Get in some mountain
climbing, see the canyons and In-
dian ruins and—”

“Yes, yes. Very well. You’ll get
your ticket as usual and a reser-
vation at the Tycho Hotel in
Phoenix. You’ll go there and,
on your first evening, retire
early. Alone, I need hardly add.
We’ll be waiting for you in your
room. There’ll be a very care-
fully prepared duplicate — surgi-
cal disguise, plastic fingerprint-
ing tips, fully educated in your
habits, tastes, and mannerisms.
He’ll stay behind and carry out
your vacation while we smuggle

SECURITY

127

you away. A similar exchange
•will be affected when you return,
you’ll be told exactly how your
double spent the summer, and
you’ll resume your ordinary
life.”

“Ummm — well — ” It was too
sudden. Lancaster had to hedge.
“But look — I’ll be supposedly
coming back from an outdoor va-
cation, with a suntan and well
rested. Somebody’s going to get
suspicious.”

“There’ll be sun lamps where
you’re going, my friend. Afad I
think the chance to work inde-
pendently on something that
really interests you will prove
•every bit as restful to your
nerves as a summer’s travel. I
know the scientific mentality.”
Berg chuckled. “Yes, indeed.”

The exchange went off so
smoothly that it was robbed of
all melodrama, though Lancaster
had an unexpectedly eerie mo-
ment when <he confronted his
double. It was his own face that
looked at him, there in the im-
personal hotel room, himself
framed against blowing curtains
and darkness of night. Then
Berg gestured him to follow and
they went down a cord ladder
hanging from the window sill. A
car waited in the alley below
and slid into easy motion the in-
stant they had gotten inside.

There was a driver and an-
other man in the front seat, both
shadows against the moving blur
of street lamps and night. Berg
and Lancaster sat in the rear,
and the secret agent chatted all
the way. But he said nothing of
informational content.

When the highway had taken
them well into the loneliness of
the desert, the car turned off it,
bumped along a miserable dirt
track until it had crossed a ridge,
and slowed before a giant trans-
continental dieselectric truck. A
man emerged from its cab, wav-
ing an unhurried arm, and the
car swung around to the rear of
the van. There was a tailgate
lowered, forming a ramp; above
it, the huge double doors ope'ned
on a cavern of blackness. The car
slid up the ramp, and the man
outside pushed it in after them
and closed the doors. Presently
the truck got into motion.

“This is really secret!” whis-
tled Lancaster. He felt awed and
helpless.

“Quite so. Security doesn’t
like the government’s right hand
to know what its left is doing.”
Berg smiled, a dim flash of teeth
in his shadowy face. Then he
was serious. “It’s necessary,
Lancaster. You don’t know how
strong and well-organized the
subversives are.”

“They — ” The physicist closed

128

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

his mouth. It was true — he
hadn’t the faintest notion, really.
He followed the news, but in a
cursory fashion, without trou-
bling to analyze the meaning of
it. Damn it all, he had enough
else to think about. Just as well
that elections had been sus-
pended and bade fair to continue
indefinitely in abeyance. If he, a
member of the intelligentsia,
wasn’t sufficiently acquainted
with the political and military
facts of life to make rational de-
cisions, it certainly behooved the
ill-educated masses to obey.

“We might as well stretch our-
selves,” said the driver. “Long
way to go yet,” He climbed out
and switched on an overhead
light.

The interior of the van was
roomy, even allowing for the car.
There were bunks, a table and
chairs, a small refrigerator and
cookstove. The driver, a lean
saturnine man who seemed to be
forever chewing gum, began to
prepare coffee. The other sat
down, whistling tunelessly. He
was young and powerfully built,
but his right arm ended in a
prosthetic claw. All of them were
dressed in inconspicuous civilian
garb.

“Take us about ten hours,
maybe,” said Berg. “The space-
ship’s ’way over in Colorado.”

He caught Lancaster’s blank
stare, and grinned. “Yes, my
friend, your lab is out in space.
Surprised?”

“Mmm — yeah. I’ve never been
off Earth.”

“Sokay. We run at accelera-
tion, you won’t be spacesick.”
Berg drew up a chair, sat down,
and tilted it back against a wall.
The steady rumble of engines
pulsed under his words:

“It’s interesting, really, to
consider the relationship between
government and military tech-
nology. The powerful, authori-
tarian governments have always
arisen in such times as the evo-
lution of warfare made a suc-
cessful fighting machine some-
thing elaborate, expensive, and
maintainable by professionals
only. Like in the Roman Empire.
It took years to train a legion-
naire and a lot of money to equip
an army and keep it in the field.
So Rome became autarchic. How-
ever, it was not so expensive a
proposition that a rebellious gen-
eral couldn’t put some troops up
for a while — or he could pay
them with plunder. So you did
get civil wars. Later, when the
Empire had broken up and war-
fare relied largely on the indi-
vidual barbarian who brought
his own weapons with him, gov-
ernment loosened. It had to — -any
ruler who got to throwing his

SECURITY

weight around too much would
have insurrection on his hands.
Then as war again became an art
■ — well, you see how it goes.
There are other factors, of
course, Like religion — ideology
in general. But by and large, it’s
worked out the way I explained
it. Because there are always peo-
ple willing to fight when govern-
ment encroaches on what they
consider their liberties, and gov-
ernments are always going to try
to encroach. So the balance
struck depends on comparative
strength. The American colonists
back in 1776 relied on citizen
levies and weapons were so cheap
and simple that almost anyone
could obtain them. Therefore
government stayed loose for a
long time. But nowadays, who
except a government can make
atomic bombs and space rockets ?
So we get absolute states.”

Lancaster looked around, feel-
ing the loneliness close in on
him. The driver was still clatter-
ing the coffee pot. The one-armed
man was utterly blank and ex-
pressionless. And Berg sat there,
smiling, pouring out those damn-
able cynicisms. Was it some kind
of test? Were they probing his
loyalty? What kind of reply was
expected ?

“We’re a democratic nation
and you know it,” he said. It

129

came out more feebly than he
had thought.

“Oh, well, sure. This is just a
state of emergency which has
lasted unusually long, seventy-
two years to be exact. If we
hadn’t lost World War III, and
needed a powerful remilitariza-
tion to overthrow the Soviet
world — but we did.” Berg took
out a pack of cigarettes.
“Smoke? I was just trying- to
explain to you why the subvers-
ives are so dangerous. They have
to be, or they wouldn’t stand any
kind of chance. When you set
out to upset something as big as
the United States government,
it’s an all or nothing proposi-
tion. They’ve had a long time
now to organize, and there’s a
huge percentage of malcontents
to help them out.”

“Malcontents? Well, look,
Berg — I mean, you’re the expert
and of course you know your
business, but a natural human
grumble at conditions doesn’t
mean revolutionary sentiments.
These aren’t such bad times.
People have work, and their
needs are supplied. They aren’t
hankering to have the Hemis-
pheric Wars back again.”

“The standard revolutionary
argument,” said Berg patiently,
“is that the rebels aren’t trying
to overthrow the nation at all,
but simply to restore constitu-

130

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

tional and libertarian govern-
ment. It’s common 'knowledge
that they have help and some
subsidies from outside, but it’s
contended that these are merely
countries tired of a world dom-
inated by an American dictator-
ship and, being small Latin-
American and European states,
couldn’t possibly think of con-
quering us. Surely you’ve seen
subversive literature.”

“Well, yes. Can’t help finding
their pamphlets. All over the
place. And — ” Lancaster closed
his mouth. No, damned if he was
going to admit that he knew
three co-workers who listened to
rebel propaganda broadcasts.
Those were silly, harmless kids
— why get them in trouble, may-
be get them sent to camp?

“You probably don’t appre-
ciate the hold that kind of argu-
ment has on all too many
intellectuals — and a lot of the
common herd, too,” said Berg.
“Naturally you wouldn’t — if
your attitude has always been
unsympathetic, these people
aren’t going to confide their
thoughts to you. And then there
are bought men, and spies
smuggled in, and — oh, I needn’t
elaborate. It’s enough to say that
we’ve been thoroughly infiltrat-
ed, and that most of their agents
have absolutely impeccable dos-

siers. We can’t give neoscop to
everybody, you know — Security
has to rely on spot checks and
the testing of key personnel.
Only when organizations get as
big as they are today, there’s
apt to be no real key man, and
a few spies strategically placed
in the lower echelons can pick-up
a hell of a lot of information.
Then there are the colonists out
on the planets — our hold on them
has always necessarily been
loose, because of transportation
and communication difficulties if
nothing else. And, as I say, for-
eign powers. A little country
like Switzerland or Denmark or
Venezuela can’t do much by it-
self, but an undercover interna-
tional pooling *of resources . . .
Anyway, we have reason to be-
lieve in the existence of a large,
well financed, well organized un-
derground, with trained fighting
men, big secret weapons dumps,
and saboteurs ready for the
word ‘go’ — to say nothing of a
restless population and any num-
ber of covert sympathizers who’d
follow if the initial uprising had
good results.”

“Or bad, depending on whose
viewpoint you take,” grinned the
one-armed man.

Lancaster put his elbows on
his knees and rested -his forehead
on shaking hands. “What has
all this got to do with me?” he

SECURITY

131

protested. “I’m not the hero of
vsome cloak-and-dagger spy story.
I’m no good at undercover stuff
— what do you want of me?”

“It’s very simple,” Berg re-
plied quietly. “The balance of
power is still with the govern-
ment, because it does have more
of the really heavy weapons than
any other group can possibly
muster. Alphabet bombs, artil-
lery, rockets, armor, spaceships
and space missies. You see? Only
research has lately suggested
that i\ new era in warfare is de-
veloping— a new weapon -as de-
cisive as the Macedonian pha-
lanx, gunpowder, and aircraft
were in their day.” As Lancaster
raised his eyes, he met an almost
febrile glitter in Berg’s gaze.
“And this weapon may reverse
the trend. It may be the cheap
and simple arm that anyone can
make and use — the equalizer!
So we’ve got to develop it before
the rebels do. They have labora-
tories of their own, and their
skill at stealing our secrets
makes it impossible for us to
trust the research to a Project
in the usual manner. The fewer
who knew of this weapon, the
better — because in the wrong
hands it could mean — Armaged-
don!”

The run from Earth wras short,
for the space laboratory wasn’t

far away at the momenjt as in-
terplanetary distances go. Lan-
caster wasn’t told anything
about its orbit, but guessed that
it had a path a million miles or
so sunward from Earth and
highly tilted with respect to the
ecliptic. That made for almost
perfect concealment, for what
spaceship would normally go
much north or south of the re-
gion containing the planets?

He was too preoccupied during
the journey to estimate orbital
figures, anyway. He had seen
enough pictures of open space,
and some of them had been ex-
cellent. But the reality towered
unbelievably over all representa-
tions. There simply is no way of
describing that naked grandeur,
and when you have once expe-
rienced it you don’t want to try.
His companions- — Berg and the
one-armed Jessup, who piloted
the spaceboat — -respected his

need for silence. -

The station had been painted
non-refiecting black, which com-
plicated temperature control but
made accidental observation of
its existence almost impossible.
It loomed against the cold glory
of stars like a pit of ultimate
darkness, and Jessup had to
guide the boat in with radar.
When the last lock had clanged
shut behind him and he stood in
a narrow metal corridor, shut

132

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

away from the sky, Lancaster
felt a sense of unendurable loss.

It faded, and he grew aware
of others watching him. There
were half a dozen people, a mot-
ley group dressed in any shabby
garment they happened to fancy,
with no sign of the semi-military
discipline of a Project crew. A
Martian hovered in the back-
ground, and Lancaster didn’t no-
tice him at first. Berg introduced
the humans casually. There was
a stocky gray-haired man named
Friedrichs, a lanky space-tanned
young chap called Isaacson, a
middle-aged woman and her hus-
band by the name of Dufrere, a
quiet Oriental who answered to
Hwang, and a red-haired woman
presented as Karen M arete
These, Berg explained, were the
technicians who would be help-
ing Lancaster. This end of the
space station was devoted to the
labs and factories ; for security
reasons, Lancaster couldn’t be
permitted to go elsewhere, but
it was hoped he would be com-
fortable here.

“Ummm — pardon me, aren’t
you a rather mixed group?”
asked the physicist.

“Yes, very,” said Berg cheer-
fully. “The Dufreres are French,
Hwang is Chinese, and Karen
here is Norwegian though her
husband was Czech. Not to men-
tion . . . There you are, I didn’t

see you before! Dr. Lancaster,
I’d like you to meet Rakkan of
Thyle, Mar's, a very accom-
plished labman.”

Lancaster gulped, shifting his
feet and looking awkwardly at
the small gray-feathered body
and the beaked owl-face. Rakkan
bowed politely, sparing Lancas-
ter the decision of whether or
not to shake the clawlike hand.
He assumed Rakkan was some-
body’s slave — but since when did
slaves act as social equals?

“But you said this project was
top secret!” he blurted.

“Oh, it is,” smiled Karen
Marek. She had a husky, pleas-
ant voice, and while she was a
little too thin to be really good-
looking, she was cast in a fine
mold and her eyes were large
and gray and lovely. “I assure
you, non-Americans are perfect-
ly capable of preserving a secret.
More so than most Americans,
really — we don’t have ties on
Earth. No one to blab to.”

“It’s not well known today, but
the original Manhattan Project
that constructed the first atomic
bombs had quite an international
character,” said Berg. “It even
included German, Italian, and
Hungarian elements though the
United States was at war with
those countries.”

“Come along and we’ll get you

SECURITY

settled in your quarters,” invit-
ed Isaacson.

Lancaster followed him down
the long hallways, rather dazed
with the whole business. He no-
ticed .Unit .the space station had
a crude, unfinished look, as if it
■had been hastily thrown together
from whatever materials were
available. That didn’t ring true
for a government enterprise, no
matter how secret.

Berg seemed to read his
thought again. ‘‘We’ve worked
under .severe handicaps,” he said.
“Look, just suppose a lot of valu-
able material and equipment
•were ferried into space. If it’s an
ordinary government deal, you
know how many light-years of
red tape are involved. Requisi-
tions have to be filed out in trip-
licate, every last rivet has to be
accounted for — there’d simply
have been too much chance of a
rebel spy getting a lead on us. It
was safer all around to use what-
ever chance materials -could be
obtained from salvage' or
through individual purchases on
other planets. Ever hear of the
Waikiki 1”

“Ummm — seems -so — wasn’t
she the big freighter -that disap-
peared many years ngo?”

“That’s the one. A meteor
swarm struck her on the way to
Venus. Furthermore, one of
them shorted out her engine con-

133

•

trols, so that .she swooped out
of the ecliptic plane and fell into
a»n eccentric -skew orbit. When
this project was first started,
one of our astronomers thought
he’d identified the swarm — it has
a regular path of its own about
the sun, though the orbit is so
cockeyed that spaceships hardly
ever even see the things. Any-
way, knowing the orbit of the
meteors and that of the Waikiki
at the time, he could calculate
where the disaster must have
taken place — which gave us a
lead in searching for the hulk.
We found it after a lot of inves-
tigation, moved it here, and built
the station up around it. Very
handy. And completely secret.”

Lancaster had always suspect-
ed that Security was h little mad.
Now he knew it. Oh, well —

His room was small and -aus-
tere, but privacy was nice. The
iab crew ate in a common refec-
tory. Beyond the edge of their
territory, great bulkheads block-
ed off three-fourths of the space
station. Lancaster was sure that
many people and several Mar-
tian's lived there, for in the days
that followed he saw any number
of strangers appearing and dis-
appearing in the region allowed
him. Most of these were work-
men of some kind or other,
called in to help the lab crew as

134

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

needed, but all of them were
tight-lipped. They must have
been cautioned not to speak to
the guest more than was strictly
necessary.

Diving was Spartan in the sta-
tion. It rotated fast enough to
give weight, but even on the
outer skin that was only one-
half Earth gravity. A couple of
silent Martians prepared undis-
tinguished meals and did house-
work in the quarters. There were
no films or other organized
recreation, though Lancaster
was told that the forbidden sec-
tor included a good-sized room
for athletics.

But the crew he worked with
didn’t seem to mind. They had
their own large collections of
books and music wires, which
they borrowed from each other.
They played chess and poker
with savage skill. Conversation
was, at first, somewhat re-
strained in Lancaster’s presence,
and most of the humor had so
little reference to things he
knew that he couldn’t follow it,
but he became aware that they
talked with more animation and
intelligence than his friends on
Earth. Manners were utterly in-
formal, and it wasn’t long before
even Lancaster was being ad-
dressed by his first name; but
cooperation was smooth and
there seemed to be none of the

intrigue and backbiting of a
typical Project crew.

And the work filled their lives.
Lancaster was caught up in it
the “day” after his arrival, real-
ized at once what it meant, and
was plunged into the fascination
of it. Berg hadn’t lied; this was
big!

The perfect dielectric.

Such, at least, was the aim of
the project. It was explained to
Lancaster that one Dr. Sophoulis
had first seen the possibilities
and organized the research. It
had gone ahead slowly, hampered
by a lack of needed materials
and expert personnel. When
Sophoulis died, none of his as-
sistants felt capable of carrying
on the work at any decent rate
of speed. They were all compe-
tent in their various specialties,
but it takes more than training
to do basic research — a certain
inborn, intuitive flair is needed.
So they had sent to Earth for a
new boss — Lancaster.

The physicist scratched his
head in puzzlement. It didn’t
seem right that something so
important should have to take
the leavings of technical per-
sonnel. Secrecy or not, the most
competent men on Earth should
have been tapped for this job,
and they should have been given
everything they needed to carry
it through. Then he forgot hjs

SECURITY

135

bewilderment in the clean chill
ecstasy of the work.

Man had been hunting supe-
rior dielectrics for a long time
now. It was more than a ques-
tion of finding the perfect elec-
trical insulator, though that
would be handy too. What was
really important was the sort of
condensers made possible by a
genuinely good dielectric mate-
rial. Given that, you could do
fantastic things in electronics.
Most significant of all was the
matter of energy storage. If you
could store large amounts of
electricity in an accumulator of
small volume, without appre-
ciable leakage loss, you could
build generators designed to
handle average rather than peak
load — with resultant savings in
Cost; you could build electric
motors, containing their own
energy supply and hence port-
able— which meant electric auto-
mobiles and possibly aircraft;
you could use inconveniently lo-
cated power sources, such as re-
mote waterfalls, or dilute sources
like sunlight, to augment — may-
be eventually replace — the wan-
ing reserves of fuel and
fissionable minerals; you could
. . . Lancaster’s mind gave up on
all the possibilities opening be-
fore him and settled down to the
immediate task at hand.

“The original mineral was
found on Venus, in the Gorbu-
vashtar country,” explained
Karen Marek. “Here’s a sample.”
She gave him a lump of rough,
dense material which glittered in
hard rainbow points of light. “It
was just a curiosity at first, till
somebody thought to test its elec-
trical properties. Those were
slightly fantastic. We have all
chemical and physical data on
this stuff already, of course, as
well as an excellent idea of its
crystal structure. It’s a funny
mixture of barium and titanium
compounds with some rare earths
and — well, read the report for
yourself.”

Lancaster’s eyes skimmed
down the sheaf of papers she
handed him. “Can’t make very
good condensers out of this,” he
objected. “Too brittle — and look
how the properties vary with
temperature. A practical dielec-
tric has to be stable in every
way, at least over the range of
conditions you intend to use it
in.”

She nodded.

“Of course. Anyway, the min-
eral is very rare on Venus, and
you know how tough it is to
search for anything in Gorbu-
vashtar. What’s important is the
lead it gave Sophoulis. You see,
the dielectric constant of this
material isn’t constant at all. It

136

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

increases with applied voltage.
Look at this curve here.”

Lancaster whistled. “What the
devil — but that’s impossible!
That much variability means a
crystal structure which is — -uh —
flexible, damn it! But you’ve got
a brittle substance here — ”

According to the accepted
theory of dielectricity, this could-
n’t be. Lancaster realized with a
thumping behind his veins that
the theory would have to be
modified. Rather, this was an al-
together different phenomenon
from normal insulation.

He supposed some geological
freak had formed the mineral.
Venus was a strange planet any-
way. But that didn’t matter. The
important thing now was to get
to know7 this process. He went off
into a happy mist of quantum
mechanics, oscillation theory,
and periodic functions of a com-
plex variable.

Karen and Isaacson exchanged
a slow smile.

Sophoulis and his people had
done heroic work under adverse
conditions. A tentative theory of
the mechanism involved had al-
ready been formulated, and the
search had started for a means
to duplicate the super-dielectric-
ity in materials otherwise more
suitable to man’s needs. But as
he grew familiar with the place

and the job, Lancaster wondered
just how adverse the conditions
really were.

True, the equipment was old
and cranky, much of it haywired
together, much of it invented
from scratch. But Rakkan the
Martian, for all his lack of for-
mal education, was unbelievably
clever where it came to making
apparatus and making it behave,
and Friedrichs was a top-flight
designer. The lab had what it
needed — wasn’t that enough?

The rest of Lancaster’s crew
were equally good. The Dufreres
were physical chemists par ex-
cellence, Isaacson a brilliant
crystallographer with an unusual
brain for mathematics, Hwang
an expert on quantum theory
and inter-atomic forces, Karen
an imaginative experimenter.
None of them quite had the syn-
thesizing mentality needed for
an overall picture and a fore-vi-
sion of the general direction of
work— that had been Sophoulis’
share, and was now Lancaster’s
— but they were all cheerful and
skilled where it came to detail
work and could often make sug-
gestions in a theoretical line.

Then, too, there was no Se-
curity snooping about, no petty
scramble for recognition and
promotion, no red tape. What
was more important, Lancaster
began to realize, was the per-

SECURITY

137

sonal nature of the whole affair.
In a Project, the overall chief
set the pattern, and it was fol-
lowed by his subordinates with
increasingly less latitude as you
worked down through the lower
ranks. You did what you were
told, produced results or else,
and kept your mouth shut out-
side your own sector of the
Project. You had only the
vaguest idea of what actually
was being created, and why, and
how it fitted into the broad
scheme of society.

Hwang and Rakkan comment-
ed on that, one “evening” at din-
ner when they had grown more
relaxed in Lancaster’s presence.
“It was inevitable, I suppose,
that scientific research should
become corporate,” said the Chi-
nese. “So much equipment was
needed, and so many specialties
had to be coordinated, that the
solitary genius with only a few
assistants hadn’t a chance.
Nevertheless, it’s a pity. It’s de-
stroyed initiative in many prom-
ising young men. The top man
is no longer a scientist at all —
he’s an administrator with some
technical background. The lower
ranks do have to exercise inge-
nuity, yes, but only along the
lines they are ordered to follow.
If some interesting sideline
crops up, they can’t investigate
it. All they can do is submit a

memorandum to the chief, and
most likely if anything is done
it will be carried out by some-
one else.”

“What would you do about it?”
shrugged Lancaster. “You just
admitted that the old-time ge-
nius in a garret can’t compete.”

“No — but the small team of
creative specialists, each with an
excellent understanding of the
others’ fields, and each working
in a loose, free-willed coopera-
tion with the rest, can. Indeed,
the results will be much better.
It was tried once, you may know.
The early cybernetics men, back
in the last century, worked that
way.”

“I wish we could co-opt some
biologists and psychologists into
this,” murmured Rakkan. His
English was good, though inde-
scribably accented by his vocal
apparatus. “The cellular and
neural implications of dielectric-
ity look — promising. Maybe
later.”

“Well,” said Lancaster de-
fensively, “a large Project can
be made more secure — less
chance of leakage.”

Hwang said nothing, but he
cocked an eyebrow at an almost
treasonable angle.

In going through Sophoulis’
equations, Lancaster found what
he believed was the flaw that was

138

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

blocking progress. The man had
used a simplified quantum me-
chanics without correction for
relativistic effects. That made
for neater mathematics but over-
looked certain space-time aspects
of the psi function. The error
was excusable, for Sophoulis had
not been familiar with the
Belloni matrix, a mathematical
tool that brought order into
what was otherwise incompre-
hensible chaos. Belloni’s work
was still classified information,
being too useful, in the design
of new alloys, for general con-
sumption. Lancaster went hap-
pily to work correcting the equa-
tions. But when he was finished,
he realized that he had no busi-
ness showing his results without
proper clearance.

He wandered glumly into the
lab. Karen was there alone, set-
ting up an apparatus for the
next attempt at heat treatment.
A smock covered her into shape-
lessness, and her spectacular
hair was bound up in a kerchief,
but she still looked good. Lan-
caster, a shy man, was more sus-
ceptible to her than he wanted
to be.

“Where’s Berg?” he asked.

“Back on Earth with Jessup,”
she told him. “Why?”

“Damn! It holds up the whole
business till he returns.” Lan-
caster explained his difficulty.

Karen laughed. "Oh, that’s all
right,” she said in the low voice
he liked to hear. “We’ve all been
cleared.”

“Not officially. I’ve got to see
the papers.”

She glared at him then and
stamped her foot. “How stupid
can you get without having to
be spoon fed?” she snapped.
“You’ve seen how much we think
of regulations here. Let’s have
those equations, Mac.”

“But — blast it, Karen, you
don’t appreciate the need for
security. Berg explained it to me
once — how dangerous the rebels
are, and how easily they can
steal our secrets. And they’ll stop
at nothing. Do you want another
Hemispheric War?”

She looked oddly at him, and
when she spoke it was softly.
“Allen, do you really believe
that?”

“Certainly! It’s obvious, isn’t
it? Our country is maintaining
the peace of the Solar System —
once we drop the reins, all hell
will run away from us.”

“What’s wrong with setting up
a world-wide federation of coun-
tries? Most other nations are
willing.”

“But that — it’s not practical!”

“How do you know? It’s never
been tried.”

“Anyway, we can’t decide
policy. That’s just not for us.”

SECURITY

139

“The United States is a demo-
cratic country — remember?”
“But — ” Lancaster looked

away. For a moment he stood
unspeaking, and she watched him
with grave eyes and said noth-
ing. Then, not really knowing
why he did it, he lifted a defiant
head. “All right! We’ll go ahead
— and if Berg sends us all to
camp, don’t blame me.”

“He won’t.” She laughed and
clapped his shoulder. “You know,
Allen, there are times when I
think you’re human after all.”
“Thanks,” he grinned wryly.
“How about — uh — how about
having a — a b-beer with me
now? To celebrate.”

“Why, sure.”

They went down to the shop.
A cooler of beer was there, its
contents being reckoned as
among the essential supplies
brought from Earth by Jessup.
Lancaster uncapped two bottles,
and he and Karen sat down on
a bench, swinging their legs and
looking over the silent, waiting
machines. Most of the station
personnel were off duty now, in
the arbitrary “night.”

He sighed at last. “I like it
here.”

“I’m glad you do, Allen.”

“It’s a funny place, but I like
it. The station and all its wacky
inhabitants. They’re heterodox

as the very devil and would have
trouble getting a dog catcher’s
job back home, but they’re all
refreshing.” Lancaster snapped
his fingers. “Say, that’s it!
That’s why you’re all out here.
The government needs your tal-
ents, and you aren’t quite trust-
ed, so you’re put here out of
range of spies. Right?”

“Do you have to see a rebel
with notebook in hand under
every bed?” she asked with a
hint of weariness. “The First
Amendment hasn’t been repealed
yet, they say. Theoretically we’re
all entitled to our own opinions.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t argue
politics. Tell me about some of
the people here, will you?
They’re an odd bunch.”

“I can’t tell you much, Allen.
That’s where Security- does ap-
ply. Isaacson is a Martian colon-
ist, you’ve probably guessed that
already. Jessup lost his hand in
a — a fight with some enemies
once. The Dufreres had a son
who was killed in the Moroccan
incident.” Lancaster remembered
that that affair had involved
American power used to crush a
French spy ring centered in
North Africa. Sovereignty had
been brushed aside. But damn it,
you had to preserve the status
quo, for your own survival if
nothing else. “Hwang had to go
into exile when the Chinese gov-

140

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

ernment changed hands a few
years back. I — ”

“Yes?” he asked when her
voice faded out.

"Oh, I might as well tell you.
My husband and I lived in Amer-
ica after our marriage. He was
a good biotechnician and had a
job with one of the big pharma-
ceutical companies. Only he —
went to camp. Later he died or
was shot, I don’t know which.”
Her words were flat.

“That’s a shame,” he said in-
adequately.

“The funny part of it is, he
wasn’t engaged in treason at all.
He was quite satisfied with
things as they were — oh, he
talked a little, but so does every-
body. I imagine some rival or
enemy put the finger on him.”
“Those things happen,” said
Lancaster. “It’s too bad, but they
happen.”

“They’re bound to occur in a
police state,” she said. “Sorry.
We weren’t going to argue poli-
tics, were we?”

“I never said the world was
perfect, Karen. Far from it. Only
what alternative have we got?
Any change is likely to be so
dangerous that — well, man can’t
afford mistakes.”

“No, he can’t. But I wonder if
he isn’t making one right now.
Oh, well. Give me another beer.”
They talked on indifferent sub-

jects till Karen said it was her
bedtime. Lancaster escorted her
to her apartment. She looked at
him curiously as he said good
night, and then went inside and
closed the door. Lancaster had
trouble getting to sleep.

The corrected equations pro-
vided an adequate theory of
super-dielectricity — a theory

with tantalizing hints about still
other phenomena — and gave the
research team a precise idea of
what they wanted in the way of
crystal structure. Actually, the
substance to be formed was only
semi-crystalline, with plastic
features as well, all interwoven
with a grid of carbon-linked
atoms. Now the trick was to pro-
duce that stuff. Calculation re-
vealed what elements would be
needed, and what spatial ar-
rangement— only how did you
get the atoms to assume the re-
quired configuration and hook up
in the right way?

Theory would get you only so
far, thereafter it was cut and
try. Lancaster rolled up his
sleeves with the rest and let
Karen take over the leadership
— she was the best experimenter.
He spent some glorious and all
but sleepless weeks, greasy,
dirty, living in a jungle of hay-
wired apparatus with a restless
slide rule. There were plenty of

SECURITY

141

failures, a lot of heartbreak and
profanity, an occasional injury
— but they kept going, and they
got there.

The day came — or was it the
night?— when Karen took a slab
of darkly shining substance out
of the furnace where it had been
heat-aging. Rakkan sawed it into
several chunks for testing. It
was Lancaster who worked on
the electric properties.

He applied voltage till his gen-
erator groaned, and watched in
awe as meters climbed and
climbed without any sign of
stopping. He discharged the ac-
cumulated energy in a single
blue flare that filled the lab with
thunder and ozone. He tested for
time lag of an electric signal and
wondered wildly if it didn’t feel
like sleeping on its weary path.

The reports came in, excited
yells from one end of the long,
cluttered room to the other, ex-
ultant whoops and men pound-
ing each other on the back. This
was it! This was the treasure at
the rainbow’s end.

The substance and its proper-
ties were physically and chem-
ically stable over a temperature
range of hundreds of degrees.
The breakdown voltage was up
in the millions. The insulation
resistance was better than the
best known to Earth’s science.

The dielectric constant could be
varied at will by a simple electric
field normal to the applied volt-
age gradient — a field which
could be generated by a couple
of dry cells if need be — and
ranged from a hundred thousand
to about three billion. For all
practical purposes, here was the
ultimate dielectric.

“We did it!” Friedrichs
slapped Lancaster’s back till it
felt that the ribs must crack.
"We have it!”

“Whooppee!” yelled Karen.
Suddenly they had joined
hands and were dancing idiotic-
ally around the induction fur-
nace. Lancaster clasped Rakkan’s
talons without caring that it was
a Martian. They sang then, sang
till heads appeared at the door
and the glassware shivered.

Here we go ’round the mulberry
bush,

The mulberry bush, the mulberry
bush —

It called for a celebration. The
end of a Project meant no more
than filing a last report and
waiting for the next assignment,
but they ran things differently
out here. Somebody broke out a
case of Venusian aguacaliente.
Somebody else led the way to a
storeroom, tossed its contents
into the hall, and festooned it
with used computer tape. Rak-

142

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

kan forgot his Martian dignity
and fiddled for a square dance,
with Isaacson doing the calling.
The folk from the other end of
the station swarmed in till the
place overflowed. It was quite a
party.

Hours later, Lancaster was
hazily aware of lying stretched
on the floor. His head was in
Karen’s lap and she was stroking
his hair. The hardy survivors
were following the Dufreres in
French drinking songs, which
are the best in the known uni-
verse. Rakkan’s fiddle wove in
and out, a lovely accompaniment
to voices that were untrained
but made rich and alive by tri-
umph.

“Sur ma tomb’ Je veux qu’on
inscrive :

‘Ici-git le roi des buveurs.’

Sur ma tomb’ je veux qu’on
inscrive:

‘Ici-git le roi des buveurs.

Ici-git, oui, oui, oui,

Ici-git, non, non, non — ’ ”

Lancaster knew that he had
never been really happy before.

Berg showed up a couple of
days later, looking worried. Lan-
caster’s vacation time was al-
most up. When he heard the
news, his eyes snapped gleefully
and he pumped the physicist’s
hand. “Good work, boy!”

“There are things to clean up
yet,” said Lancaster, “but it’s all
detail. Anybody can do it.”

“And the material — what do
you call it, anyway?”

Karen grinned. “So far, we’ve
only named it ffuts,” she said.
“That’s ‘stuff’ spelled backward.”
“Okay, okay. It’s easy to manu-
facture?”

“Sure. Now that we know how,
anybody can make it in his own
home — if he’s handy at tinkering
apparatus together.”

“Fine, fine! Just what was
needed. This is the ticket.” Berg
turned back to Lancaster.
“Okay, boy, you can pack now.
We blast again in a few hours.”
The physicist shuffled his feet.
“What are my chances of getting
re-assigned back here?” he
asked. “I’ve liked it immensely.
And now that I know about it
anyway — ”

“I’ll see. I’ll see. But remem-
ber, this is top secret. You go
back to your regular job and
don’t say a word on this to any-
one less than the President — no
matter what happens, under-
stand ?”

“Of course,” snapped Lancast-
er, irritated. “I know my duty.”
“Yeah, so you do.” Berg
sighed. “So you do.”

Leavetaking was tough for all
concerned. They had grown
fond of the quiet, bashful man

SECURITY

143

— and as for him, he wondered
how he’d get along among nor-
mal people. These were his sort.
Karen wept openly and kissed
him good-bye with a fervor that
haunted his dreams afterward.
Then she stumbled desolately
back to her quarters. Even Berg
looked glum.

He regained his cockiness on
the trip home, though, and in-
sisted on talking all the way.
Lancaster, who wanted to be
alone with his thoughts, was
annoyed, but you don’t insult a
Security man.

“You understand the impor-
tance of this whole business, and
why it has to be secret?” nagged
Berg. “I’m not thinking of the
scientific and industrial applica-
tions, but the military ones.”

“Oh, sure. You can make
lightning throwers if you want
•to. And you’ve overcome the fuel
problem. With a few ffuts ac-
cumulators, charged from any
handy power source, you can
build fuelless military vehicles,
which would simplify your logis-
tics immensely. And some really
deadly hand guns could be built
— pistols the equivalent of a
cannon, almost.” Lancaster’s
voice was dead. "So what?”

“So plenty! Those are only a
few of the applications. If you
use your imagination, you can
think of dozens more. And the

key point is — the ffuts and the
essential gadgetry using it are
cheap to make in quantity, easy
to handle — the perfect weapon
for the citizen soldier. Or for
the rebel! It isn’t enough to de-
cide the outcome of a war all by
itself, but it may very well be
precisely the extra element
which will tip the military bal-
ance against the government.
And I’ve already discussed what
that means.”

“Yes, I remember. That’s your
department, not mine. Just let
me forget about it.”

“You’d better,” said Berg.

In the month after his return,
Lancaster lived much as usual.
He was scolded a few times for
an increasing absent-mindedness
and a lack of enthusiasm on the
Project, but that wasn’t toe se-
rious. He became more of an in-
trovert than ever. Having some
difficulty with getting to sleep,
he resorted to soporifics and
then, in a savage reaction, to
stimulants. But outwardly there
was little to show the turmoil
within him.

He didn’t know what to think.
He had always been a loyal citi-
zen— not a fanatic, but loyal —
and it wasn’t easy for him to
question his own basic assump-
tions. But he had experienced
something utterly alien to what

144

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

he considered normal, and he
had found the strangeness more
congenial — more human in every
way — than the norm. He had
breathed a different atmosphere,
and it couldn’t but seem to him
that the air of Earth was taint-
ed. He re-read Kipling’s Chant-
Pagan with a new understand-
ing, and began to search into
neglected philosophies. He stud-
ied the news in detail, and his
critical eye soon grew jaundiced
—did this editorial or that fea-
ture story have any semantic
content at all, or was it only a
tom-tom beat of loaded connota-
tions? The very statements of
fact were subject to doubt — they
should be checked against other
accounts, or better yet against
direct observation; but other ac-
counts were forbidden and there
was no chance to see for himself.

He took to reading seditious
pamphlets with some care, and
listened to a number of under-
ground broadcasts, and tried
clumsily to sound out those of
his acquaintances whom he sus-
pected of rebellious thoughts. It
all had to be done very cautious-
ly, with occasional nightmare
moments when he thought he
was being spied on; and was it
right that a man should be
afraid to hear a dissenting opin-
ion?

He wondered what his son

was doing. It occurred to him"
that modern education existed
largely to stultify independent
thought.

At the same time, he was un-
able to discard the beliefs of his
whole life. Sedition was sedition
and treason was treason — you
couldn’t evade that fact. There
were no more wars — plenty of
minor clashes, but no real wars.
There was a stable economy, and
nobody lacked for the essentials.
The universal state might be a
poor solution to the problems of
a time of troubles, but it was
nevertheless a solution. Change
would be unthinkably dangerous.

Dangerous to whom? To the
entrenched powers and their
jackals. But the oppressed peo-
ples of Earth had nothing to
lose, really, except their lives,
and many of them seemed quite
willing to sacrifice those. Did the
rights of man stop at a full belly,
or was there more ?

He tried to take refuge in
cynicism. After all, he was well
off. He was a successful jackal.
But that wouldn’t work either
He required a more basic phil-
osophy.

One thing that held him back
was the thought that if he be-
came a rebel, he would be pitted
against his friends — not only
those of Earth, but that strange
joyous crew out in space. He

SECURITY

couldn’t see fighting against
them.

Then there was the very prac-
tical consideration that he had-
n’t the faintest idea of how to
contact the underground even if
he wanted to. And he’d make a
hell of a poor conspirator.

He was still in an unhappy and
undecided whirlpool when the
monitors came for him.

They knocked on the door at
midnight, as was their custom,
and he felt such an utter panic
that he could barely make it
across the apartment to let them
in. The four burly men wavered
before his eyes, and there was a
roaring and a darkness in his
head. They arrested him without
ceremony on suspicion of treas-
on, which meant that habeas
corpus and even the right of trial
didn’t apply. Two of them escort-
ed him to a car, the other two
stayed to search his dwelling.

At headquarters, he was put
in a cell and left to stew for
some hours. Then a pair of men
in the uniform of the federal
police led him to a questioning
chamber. He was given a chair
and a smiling, soft-voiced man
- — almost fatherly, with his
plump cheeks and white hair —
offered him a cigarette and be-
gan talking to him.

“Just relax, Dr. Lancaster.

14$

This is pretty routine. If you’ve
nothing to hide then you’ve noth,
ing to fear. Just tell the truth.’’

“Of course.” It was a dr^
whisper.

“Oh, you’re thirsty. So sorry
Alec, get Dr. Lancaster a glasi,
of water, will you, please? Am)
by the way, my name is Harris
Let’s call this a friendly confer,
ence, eh?”

Lancaster drank avidly. Hai\
ris’ manner was disarming, anc)
the physicist felt more at ease,
This was — well, it was just !|
mistake. Or maybe a simple spot
check. Nothing to fear-. H<i
wouldn’t be sent to camp — not
he. Such things happened to
other people, not to Allen Lam
caster.

“You’ve been immunizecl
against neoscop?” asked Harris,

“Yes. It’s routine for my ranh
and over, you know. In case we
should ever be kidnapped — -but
why am I telling you this?” Lan-
caster tried to smile. His face
felt stiff.

“Hm. Yes. Too bad.”

“Of course, I’ve no objection
at all to your using a lie detec-
tor on me.”

“Fine, fine.” Harris beamed
and gestured to one of the ex-
pressionless policemen. A table
was wheeled forth, bearing the
instrument. “I'm glad you’re so
cooperative, Dr. Lancaster.

146

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

You’ve no idea how much trou-
ble it saves me — and you.”

They ran a few harmless cali-
brating questions. Then Hands
said, still smiling, “And now tell
me, Dr. Lancaster. Where were
you really this summer?”

Lancaster felt his heart leap
into his throat, and knew in a
sudden terror that the dials were
registering his reaction. “Why
— I took my vacation,” he stam-
mered. “I was in the South-
west—”

“Mmmm — the machine doesn’t
quite agree with you.” Harris
remained impishly cheerful.

“But it’s true! You can check
back and — ”

“There are such things as dou-
bles, you know. Come, come, now,
let’s not waste the whole night.
We both have many other things
to do.”

“I — look.’r Lancaster gulped
down his panic and tried to
speak calmly. “Suppose I am ly-
ing. The machine should tell you
that I’m not doing so out of dis-
loyalty. There are things I can’t
tell anyone without clearance.
Like if you asked me about my
work on the Project — I can’t tell
you that. Why don’t you check
through regular Security chan-
nels? There was a man named
Berg — at least he called himself
that. You’ll find that it’s all
perfectly okay with Security.”

“You can tell me anything,”
said Harris gently.

“I can’t tell you this. Not any-
body short of the President.”
Lancaster caught himself. “Of
course, that’s assuming that I
did really spend the summer for
something other than my vaca-
tion. But — ”

Harris sighed. “I was afraid
of this. I’m sorry, Lancaster.”
He nodded to his policemen. “Go
ahead, boys.”

Lancaster kept sliding into
unconsciousness. They jolted him
back to life with stimulant in-
jections and vigorous slaps and
resumed working on him. Now
and then they would let up and
Harris’ face would swim out of
a haze of pain, smiling, friendly,
sympathetic, offering him a
smoke or a shot of whiskey. Lan-
caster sobbed and wanted more
than anything else in the world
to do as that kindly man asked.
But he didn’t dare. He knew
what happened to those who re-
vealed state secrets.

Finally he was thrown back
into his cell and left to himself.
When he recovered from his
faint — that was a very slow
process — he had no idea of how
many hours or days had gone by.
There was a water tap in the
room and he drank thirstily,
vomited the liquid up again, and

SECURITY

147

sat with his head in his hands.

So far, he thought dully, they
hadn’t done too much to him. He
was short several teeth, and
there were some broken fingers
and toes, and maybe a floating
kidney. The other bruises, lacera-
tions, and burns would heal all
right if they got the chance.

Only they wouldn’t.

He wondered vaguely how Se-
curity had gotten onto his track.
Berg’s precautions had been
very thorough. So thorough, ap-
parently, that Harris could find
no trace of what had really hap-
pened that summer, and was go-
ing only on suspicion. But what
had made him suspicious in the
first place? An anonymous tip-
off — from whom? Maybe some
enemy, some rival on the Proj-
ect, had chosen this way of get-
ting rid of his sector chief.

In the end, Lancaster thought
wearily, he’d tell. Why not do
it now? Then — probably — he’d
only be shot for betraying Berg’s
confidence. That would be the
easy way out.

No. He’d hang on for awhile
yet. There was always a faint
chance.

His cell door opened and two
guards came in. He was past
flinching from them, but he had
to be supported on his way to
the questioning room.

Harris sat there, still smiling.

“How do you do, Dr. Lancaster,”
he said politely.

“Not so well, thank you.” The
grin hurt his face.

“I'm sorry to hear that. But
really, it’s your own fault. You
know that.”

“I can’t tell you anything,”
said Lancaster. “I’m under Se-
curity oath. I can’t speak of this
to anyone below the President.”

Harris looked annoyed. “Don’t
you think the President has bet-
ter things to do than come run-
ning to every enemy of the state
that yaps after him?”

“There’s been some mistake, I
tell you,” pleaded Lancaster.

“I’ll say there has. And you’re
the one that’s made it. Go ahead,
boys.” Harris picked up a maga-
zine and started reading.

After awhile, Lancaster fo-
cused his mind on Karen Marek
and kept it there. That helped
him bear up. If they knew, out
in the station, what was happen-
ing to him, they — well, they
wouldn’t forget him, try to pre-
tend they’d never known him, as
the little fearful people of Earth
did. They’d speak up, and do
their damnedest to save their
friend.

The blows seemed to come
from very far away. They didn’t
do things like this out in the
station. Lancaster realized the

148

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

truth at that moment, but it held
no surprise. The most natural
thing in the world. And now, of
course, he’d never talk.

Maybe.

When he woke up, there was
a man before him. The face
blurred, seemed to grow to
monstrous size and then move
out to infinite distances. The
voice of Harris had a ripple in
it, wavering up and down, up
and down.

“All right, Lancaster, here’s
the President. Since you insist,
here he is.”

“Go ahead, American,” said
the man. “Tell me. It’s your
duty.”

"No,” said Lancaster.

“But I am the President. You
wanted to see me.”

“Most likely a double. Prove
your identity.”

The man who looked like the
President sighed and turned
away.

Lancaster woke up again lying
on a cot. He must have been
brought awake by a stimulant,
for a white-coated figure was
beside him, holding a hypoder-
mic syringe. Harris was there
too, looking exasperated.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

“I — yes.” Lancaster’s voice
was a dull croak. He moved his
head, feeling the ache of it.^

“Look here, fellow,” said Har-
ris. “We’ve been pretty easy
with you so far. Nothing has
happened to you that can't be
patched up. But we’re getting
impatient now. It’s obvious that
you’re a traitor and hiding some-
thing.”

Well, yes, thought Lancaster,
he was a traitor, by one defini-
tion. Only it seemed to him that
a man had a right to choose his
own loyalties. Having ‘expe-
rienced what the police state
•meant, he would have been un-
true to himself if he had yielded
to it.

“If you don’t answer my ques-
tions in the next session,” said
Harris, “we’ll have to start get-
ting really rough.”

Lancaster remained -silent. It
was too much effort to try to
speak.

“Don’t think you’re being
heroic,” said Harris. “There’s
nothing pretty or even very hu-
man about a man under inter-
rogation. You’ve been screaming
as loud as anybody.”

Lancaster looked away.

He heard the doctor’s voice.
“I’d ' advice giving him a few
days’ rest before starting again,
sir.”

“You’re new here, a’ren’t
you?” asked Harris.

“Yes, sir. I was only assigned
to this duty a few weeks ago.”

SECURITY

149

“Well, we don’t put on kid
gloves for traitors.”

“That’s not what I mean, sir,”
said the doctor. “There are lim-
its to pain beyond which further
treatment simply doesn’t regis-
ter. Also, I’m a little suspicious
about this man’s heart. It has a
murmur, and questioning puts a
terrific strain on it. You would-
n’t want him to die on your
hands, would you, sir?”

“Mmmm — no. What do you
advise?”

“Just a few days in the hos-
pital, with treatment and rest.
It’ll also have a psychological
effect as he thinks of what’s
waiting for him.”

Harris considered for a mo-
ment. “All right. I’ve got enough
other things to do anyway.”
“Very good, sir. You won’t re-
gret this.”

Lancaster heard the footsteps
retreat into silence. Presently
the doctor came around to stand
facing him. He was a short,
curly-haired man of undistin-
guished appearance. For -a mo-
ment they locked eyes, then Lan-
caster closed his. He wanted to
tell the doctor to go away, but it
wasn’t worth the trouble.

Later he was put on a stretch-
er and carried down endless halls
to another cell. This one had a
hospital look about it, somehow,
and the air was sharp with the

smell of antiseptics. The doctor
came when he was installed in
bed and took his arm and slipped
a needle into it. “Sleepy time,”
he said.

Lancaster drifted away again.

When he woke up, he felt dark-
ness and movement. He looked
around, wondering if he had
gone blind, and the breath
moaned out between his bruised
lips. A hand was laid on his
shoulder and a voice spoke out
of the black.

“It’s okay, fella. Take it easy.
There’ll be no more questions.”

It was the doctor’s voice, and
the doctor looked nothing at all
like Charon, but still Lancaster
wondered if he weren’t being
ferried over the river of death.
There was a thrumming all
about him, and he heard a low
keening of wind. “Where are we
going?” he mumbled.

“Away. You’re in a strato-
rocket now. Just take it easy.”

Lancaster fell asleep after
awhile.

Beyond that there was a
drugged, confused period where
he was only dimly aware of mov-
ing and trying to talk. Shadows
floated across his vision, shad-
ows telling him something he
couldn’t quite grasp. He followed
obediently enough. Full clarity
came eventually, and he was ly-

150

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

ing in a bunk looking up at a
metal ceiling. The shivering
pulse of rockets trembled in his
body. A spaceship?

A spaceship!

He sat up, heart thudding,
ind looked wildly around. “Hey!”
he cried.

The remembered figure of
Berg came through the door.
“Hullo, Allen,” he said. “How’re
you feeling?”

“I — you — Lancaster sank
weakly back to his pillow. He
grew aware that he was., thor-
oughly bandaged, splinted, and
braced, and that there was no
more pain. Not much, anyway.

“I feel fine,” he said.

“Good, good. The doc says
you’ll be okay.” Berg sat down
on the edge of the bunk. “I can’t
stay here long, but the hell with
it. We’ll be at the station soon.
You deserve to know some
.things, such as that you’ve been
rescued.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” said
Lancaster.

“By us. The rebels. The un-
derground. Subversive charac-
ters.”

“That’s obvious too. And
thanks — ” The word was so
ridiculously inadequate that
Lancaster had to laugh.

“I suppose you’ve guessed
most of it already,” said Berg.

“We needed a scientist of your
caliber for our project. One
thing we’re desperately short of
is technical personnel, since the
only real education in -such lines
is to be had on Earth and most
graduates find comfortable
berths in the existing society.
Like you, for instance. So we
played a trick on you. We used
part of our organization— yes,
we have a big one, and it’s pretty
smart and powerful too — bo con-
vince you this was a government
job of top secrecy. More damn
things can be done in the name
of Security — ” Berg clicked his
tongue. “Everybody you saw at
the station was more or less
play-acting, of course. The whole
thing was set up to fool you. We
might not have gotten away with
it if we’d used some other per-
son, more shrewd about such
things, but we’d studied you and
knew you for an amiable, un-
suspicious guy, too wrapped up
in your own work to go witch-
smelling.”

“I guessed that much,” admit-
ted Lancaster. “After I’d been in
the cells for awhile. Your way
of living and thinking was so
different from anything like—”

“Yeah. I’m sorry as hell
about that, Allen. We thought
you could just return to ordinary
life, but somehow — through one
of those accidents or malices in-

SECURITY

151

evitable in a state where every
man spies on his neighbor — you
were hauled in. We knew of it at
once— yes, we’ve even infiltrated
the secret police — and decided to
do something about it. Quite
apart from the danger of your
betraying what you knew — we
could have eliminated that by
quietly murdering you — there
was the fact that we’d gotten
you into this and did owe you
something. We managed to get
Dr. Pappas transferred to the
inquisitory where you were be-
ing held. He drugged you, pro-
ducing a remarkably corpse-like
figure, and smuggled you out as
simply another one who’d died
under questioning. I used my
Security papers to get the body
for special autopsy instead of
the usual immediate cremation.
Then we simply drove till we
reached the stratorocket we’d
arranged to have ready, and you
were flown to our spaceboat, and
now you’re on the way back to
the station. You were kept under
drugs most of the way to help
you rest — they’d knocked you
around quite a bit in the in-
quisitory. So — ” Berg shrugged.
“Pappas can’t go back to Earth
now, of course, but we can al-
ways use a medic in space, and it
was well worth the trouble to
rescue you.”

“Pm honored,” said Lancaster.

“I still feel tike hell about
what happened to you, though.”

“It’s all right. I can’t say I
enjoyed it, but now that I’ve
learned some hard facts — oh,
well, forget the painful nature
of the lesson. I’ll be okay. And
I’m going home!”

Jessup supported Lancaster as
they entered the space station.
JHis old crew was there waiting
to greet him. They were all
immensely pleased to have him
back, though Karen wept bitter-
ly on his shoulder.

“It’s all right,” he told her.
“I’m not in such bad shape as I
look. Honest, Karen, I’m all
right. And now that I have got-
ten back, and know where I real-
ly belong — damn, but it was
worth it!”

She looked at him with eyes
as gray as a rainy dawn. “And
you are with us?” she whis-
pered. “You’re one of us? Of
your own will?”

“Of course I am. Give me a
week or two to rest, and I’ll be
back in the lab bossing all of you
like a Simon Legree. Hell, we’ve
just begun on that super-dielec-
tricity. And there are a lot of
other things I want to try out,
too.”

“It means exile,” she said.
“No more blue skies and green
valleys and ocean winds. No

152

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

more going back to Earth.”

“Well, there are other planets,
aren’t there? And we’ll go back
to Earth in the next decade, I
bet. Back to start a new Ameri-
can Revolution and write the
Bill of Rights in the sky for all
to see.” Lancaster grinned shyly.
“I’m not much at making
speeches, and I certainly don’t
like to listen to them. But I’ve
learned the truth and I want to
say it out loud. The right of
man to be free is the most basic
one he’s got, and when he gives
that up he finishes by surrender-
ing everything else too. You
people are fighting to bring back
honesty and liberty and the pos-
sibility of progress. I hope no-
body here is a fanatic, because
fanaticism is exactly what we’re
fighting against. I say we, be-
cause from now on I'm one of
you. That is, if you’re sure you
want me.”

He stopped, clumsily. “Okay.
Speech ended.”

Karen drew a shivering breath
and smiled at him. “And every-
thing else just begun, Allen,”
she said. He nodded, feeling too
much for words.

“Get to bed with you,” or-
dered Pappas.

Jessup led Lancaster off, and
one by one the others drifted
back to their jobs. Finally only

Karen and Berg stood by the
airlock.

“You keep your beautiful
mouth shut, my dear,” said the
man.

“Oh, sure.” Karen -sighed un-
happily. “I wish I’d never
learned your scheme. When you
explained it to me I wanted to
shoot you.”

“You insisted on an explana-
tion,” said Berg defensively.
“When Allen was due to go
back to Earth, you wanted us
to tell him who we were and
keep him. But it wouldn’t have
worked.

I’ve studied his dossier, and he’s
not the kind of man to switch
loyalties that easily. If we were
to have him at all, it could only
be with his full consent. And now
we’ve got him.”

“It was still a lousy trick,”
she said.

“Of course it was. But we had
no choice. We had to have a
first-rate physicist.”

“You know,” she said, “you’re
a rat from way back.”

““That I am. And by and large,
I enjoy it.” Berg grimaced.
“Though I must admit this job
leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I like Allen. It was the hardest
thing I ever did, tipping off the
federal police about him.”

He turned on his heel and
walked away, smiling . faintly.

TAKE-OFF

Where the Readers take over and anything goes.

Dear Lester:

The second SPACE was much
better, to my taste, than the first
— and the first wasn’t bad by any
means. There seemed to be more
to the second issue ; no doubt the
smaller type and larger number
of stories had something to do
with it. The older type was
rather nice, but I think I’ll pre-
fer the smaller when I get used
tb seeing nothing else.

Cover: distinctly better, but
not as good as it could have been.
A' little more air between the
title SPACE SCIENCE FIC-
TION on top and the picture, as
well as the date on the side, and
the picture, would have- made a
lot of difference.

Cover picture: both pleasing
and annoying, though the pleas-
ure wins out, I think. It’s annoy-
ing because it’s cluttered at top
— Saturn would be better out —
and because the thing that
catches the eye is not the main
figures, but the man holding the
oxy tank, up toward left top;
also, I feel you could have done
without the figure floating up in
the lefthand corner completely.

Okay, enough quibbles on

matters for the moment; now
that I’ve bought the book, it’s
the stories that count. I stack
’em thisaway.

Best: MOON-BLIND by Erik
van Lhin. A very neat job of sus-
pense, with perfect balance be-
tween story, character-interest,
and intellectual stuff. I won-
dered, at first, why this, rather
than the “feature novel” led off
the book — now I know, and
agree that it should have.

Very good: a second-place tie
to A MATTER OF FAITH, by
Michael Sherman, and THE
REVISITOR by Theodore L.
Thomas. The Sherman is
stronger on idea and color than
character and movement, though
perhaps at greater length some-
thing more could have been done
with it. At least, w7e don’t have
the cardboard hero and villains
you’d have found in this back-
ground not too many years back.
The Thomas doesn’t have much
new about it, but the treatment
makes it wonderfully fresh, and
the writing is quite smooth with-
out being superslick.

Good : third-place jto THE

FENCE. Despite the author’s

153

154

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

skill, which made for good read-
ing, the story was stale in that
it -was obvious what lay behind
the works. And there wasn’t very
much story to it ; it was more of
an essay.

Enjoyable: THE GOD IN

THE BOWL, by Robert E. How-
ard, I’d put in 4th place, with
OF'FICIAL RECORD close be-
hind. With both, nearly all the
basic elements were familiar.
The Pratt novelet had better
writing, I thought, except for a
slow start, but Conan had more
fire. So Conan’s silly. So are a
number of perfectly enjoyable
stories.

Not So Good: I’d put WITH
WINGS, by John Jakes, ahead
of THE BARRIER in spite
of Leinster’s sensitive handling;
the latter struck me as just hit-
ting a minimum of competence.
It held my interest enough so
that I was curious to see what
happened, but the writing
struck me as being very
awkward, the characterization as
standard as the multiplication
table, and the story itself far
from fresh.

Editorial & Book Reviews :
Hmm, are you sure you could
spare the space? What was there
was fine, but why not do some-
thing with these departments?

Artworks: Orban very fine
throughout. Poulton’s double-

spread struck me as being per-
fect once I read the story — very
good eye-catcher before I read
the tale. His full page was
pretty, but it could fit dozens of
stories which had females and
scientific equipment in them just
as well, and some better. Sehect-
erson I thought good on the
Howard story, not so hot on the
Pratt, though better than good
on Jakes. Gari I can live with-
out, though there are far worse
around these days.

Biggest complaint of all:
SPACE SCIENCE FICTION
manages to make a two-months
wait between issues seem more
like four months.

Glen Monroe

Bronx, New York

We’ve got room for improve-
ment, Glen — and we’re trying to
take full advantage of it. That
smaller type you mention was to
give the readers more reading
per issue. We’ve also expanded
the book reviews, you’ll notice.
But like you, our real interest is
in the stories, so they have to
come first. Incidentally, thanks
for rating them. I really appre-
ciate it when a reader takes time
to list stories in the order of his
preference.

L. R.

Dear Lester:

To be frank, your cover for

TAKE-OFF

155

“The editor will see the green gentleman now.”

156

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

the September issue was the best
one any editor has wrung from
Bergey. As any other fan, I just
love to make suggestions! The
first, is: covers by TIMMINS
and ORBAN !

The second suggestion is long
novels by POUL ANDERSON
and GEORGE 0. SMITH!

NOW the ’stories . . . Rating
was tough, but after fliping a
few mental dice : MOON-BLIND
came first, THE FENCE came
second, THE BARRIER came
third. The rest went in the fol-
lowing order: A MATTER OF
FAITH, THE REVISITOR, and
OFFICIAL RECORD. WITH
WINGS seemed a pointless re-
hash of a well-worn, threadbare,
and plotless group of words. As
for THE GOD IN THE BOWL,
I can’t find adjectives to describe
it. That was the first Robert E.
Howard story I have ever read.
I hope this is not a fair represen-
tation of his works because —
well, I had to force myself to
finish it. Please! no more like
these last two in your excellent
little magazine.

Jon Stopa
6109 McClellan
Chicago 30, 111.

Well, we’ve got a novelette by
Paul Anderson, at least. But just
between us, Jon, I positively
won’t buy according to the name

of the author, even in the case of
such fine men as Anderson and
Smith. Incidentally, the Howard
yarn wasn’t typical— it was v&\'y
early Howard, and frankly I felt
it was a story readers would
want, even if not Howard’s top-
grade best. Try THE SCARLET
CITADEL or Ghome Press’
CONAN THE CONQUEROR to
see the more developed, Conan
treatment. Fortunately, most
readers seemed happy to see the
story.

L. R.

Dear Lester:

In the September issue, I wish
•to compliment you on your edi-
torial on telepathy. This editorial
has undoubtedly caused some
tale teller to discard for the mo-
ment his present work (perhaps
even in the 'fourth or fifth draft)
and' start this spark of stimula-
tion rolling towards a unique and
thereafter much-copied story.

A MATTER OF FAITH was a
little on the jadventure-story Bide
w$th pne man .coming out sitting
on itop of the world— I mean
Grekh. Yet I liked -the trickiness
of the three religions’ founda-
tion — Gregg, Pittman, and
Speedwrititng shorthand.

MOON-BLIND, although un-
plaueable, was written in a way
which made the reader feel it
plausable. The solution seemed
rather weak.

TAKE-OFF

157

OFFICIAL RECORD lacks
reader interest due to the absence
of purposeful characterization —
no main character to exist
throughout all the story, result-
ing in disunity and incoherence.
Who cares what happens between
the big rats and the humanoid
“rats" ? Well, I’ll admit I did like
the big rats taking control from
His Intelligent Humanoid Rod-
ency in the end, thus I contradict
myself.

THE FENCE presented a new
driving force (a man shoveling
coal or making watches because
he wants to) for society if only,
of course, theoriatical and pend-
ing upon the conditioning of
minds for such a society. The
force is presented only inciden-
tally along with a story which,
with a lot more subtility and
style, could be Bradbury. Yet this
is not criticism as I like the
story immensely as it is, and con-
forming it to Bradbury could not
possibly improve it much. Ray
just happens to be my favorite
author, Poe and Hawthorne not
excluded, that’s all.

I should have thought my
twelve-year old brother wrote
THE GOD IN THE BOWL had
not De Camp said differently in
his note.

THE BARRIER, an interest-
ing story.

WITH WINGS, an overworked

theme but a suspense-packed
three pages (for me anyhow).

THE REVISITOR didn’t
strike me until the next morning,
but then it really hit me. I liked
it.

The cover? No bug-eyed mon-
sters or men with blue, purple
or green faces and the woman
looks intelligent, though rather
chilly if they get to her. Illustra-
tors, you’d ‘be surprised how al-
luring you can make a girl in
just an old-fashioned skirt and
sweater from that ancient year
of 1952.

Page 93 by Poulton. Another
intelligent face.

Page 120 by Schecterson. I’ve
seen but one illustration I liked
more. That was one by Mentor
Huebner appearing on the back
of the RAY BRADBURY RE-
VIEW (back to him again) pic-
turing the climax of Ray’s THE
EARTH MEN and that’s prob-
ably because I’m a fiend for any-
thing with the by-line “Ray
Bradbury.”

James D. Cornette
2848 Columbus Avenue
Columbus, Ohio

Your idea of some writer sitting
down and doing a more thorough
job on telepathy was what / had
in mind in writing the editorial,
of course. They’re meant to stim-
ulate readers and editors to work

158

SPACE SCIENCE FICTION

a little harder thinking over the
old ideas — because 'most of those
ideas become new, then, some-
how! Anyhow, thinking is fun —
almost as much fun as getting a
chance to show off in print about
my own thinking. That, just be-
tween us, is the real reason be-
hind the editorial!

L. R.

Dear Lester,

Why not compare telepathy to
speech ?

When a child is learning to
talk he must listen to others in
his environment, watch their lips
move and try to imitate their
sounds and lip movements, and
connect the words to his
thoughts. There must develop
mutual understanding between
him and others. On the other
hand, if he doesn’t want to tell
his mother who took the jar of
jam out of the pantry, he won’t
tell her; she may know, but not
through his words.

Don’t you think the same
would apply to telepathy?

For instance, when a criminal
is being cross-examined, he is
sometimes tricked into saying
things he didn’t intend to say;
but normally people are on guard
against giving themselves away.

And like learning to speak, a
mind-reader would have to learn
by the simple process of watch-
ing people, at first analyzing

what they are thinking by study-
ing their unconscious gestures,
facial movements, and actions.
Once he knows his subjects’ mo-
tives and desires, he may learn
to know what their thoughts are
— for that particular moment.

In practice, with telepathy
there should be no more mis-
understanding, of course; no
wars, arguments, or fighting of
any kind. People wouldn’t even
need a leader unless some catas-
trophe should come. And every-
one should learn to be perfect.
It’s all so simple ... if we only
had telepathy !

I agree. It should make a fine
story, if someone could just take
the time to think a little harder
about telepathy.

Gene Moas
1318 Harrison
Topeka, Kansas

7 like your analogy between
learning to speak and learning
telepathy — a sound, logical idea.
It seems reasonable that people
who were telepaths would have
to team to interpret the thoughts
of others, just as a person bom
with a sense of hearing has to
learn to interpret sounds. Sorry
I had to cut your letter, this
time, being short of space.
Good material for thinking, and
I always like that.

L. R.

IN MEMORIAM

As this issue goes to press, we have just learned that heart
failure has claimed the life of one of science fiction's best-
known cover artists. Earle Bergey died during the first week of
October, 1952.

The news comes as a profound shock to us. Mr. Bergey
seemed to be in excellent health, when he was in our office
recently; a pleasant, hearty man, who looked capable of enjoy-
ing life to its fullest for many more decades.

To say that he will be missed is a gross understatement. We
saw and admired the work of this artist fifteen years ago, and
probably no other artist in this field has equalled the number
of covers which he executed. Certainly, few have equalled his
high level of technical excellence! His sense of form, color and
composition must have attracted countless thousands of readers
to science fiction.

When we first got in touch with Mr. Bergey a few months
ago, we found that our problems in getting covers to suit us
were ended. Mr. Bergey was singularly pleasant and coopera-
tive. He was able to take our rough suggestions and grasp what
we wanted almost at once. He was apparently delighted to
keep working until we were completely satisfied with the re-
sulting illustration. And the final form was invariably better than
we had expected. He was, in short, the type of artist about
whom editors and art directors dream in their rosier moments.
And the reader response to his art proved that he was also the
type of artist fans want to see doing their covers.

Mr. Bergey lived and worked in Pennsylvania. He was just
planning to move to New York, which would have made work-
ing with him even more pleasant. Unfortunately, this move was
sadly interrupted, and the fine covers which he was beginning
for us will now never be completed.

-Earle Bergey is survived by his wife and two children. They
have our sincerest condolence. We are sure all our readers will
share our own grief at this unhappy news, and our gratitude
for what Mr. Bergey has given to all of us.

JOHN RAYMOND
LESTER DEL REY
MILTON BERWIN

IT'S A SHAME!

When you write in saying you missed a copy of SPACE
SCIENCE FICTION, we’re as sorry as you are. We’ve tried to
keep up with the growing demand, but it seems the supply is
never enough. We had a few back issues at first, but even
those have been exhausted now. It’s a shame, but there is
nothing we can do about those copies you have already
missed. Something can be done about future copies, however.
You can be sure of getting every top-notch issue, without hunt-
ing from newsstand to newsstand. How? Simple enough — just
send us your subscription now, before you forget. You'll be
saving yourself time, worry — and money. And that is def-
initely not shame — it's just common sense!

SPACE PUBLICATIONS, Inc.

175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10. N. Y.

I’m enclosing my check or money order in the amount of

$ Please send me SPACE SCIENCE FICTION each

month for years.

Name

Street & No.

City Zone State

RATFS: $3.50 per year in U. S. and possessions;
$4.50 per year in Canada; $5.00 elsewhere.

Do You Want a

success - wish me

VOICE?

Give the Feuchtinger Voice -Method
a chance to help you develop more

POWER VIGOR CHARACTER

IN YOUR VOICE

Add controlled strength to your voice and people will lis-
ten when you talk. A stronger voice may make you more
interesting, more persuasive, more poised. What you say
will have more importance, when your voice is full-toned,
because people generally respect a BIG voice.

Thousands are held back
by a negative voice —

AND DON’T KNOW IT!

Your popularity and recognition depends, frequently, on your voice and the
impression it makes. Don’t be handicapped by just an ordinary common weak
voice. You’ll improve your personality by replacing "thinness” in your voice
with new desirable strength. And, of course, I don’t have to mention the
direct dollars-and-cents cash value of a more positive voice for salesmen,
executives, preachers, announcers, union leaders, politicians.

ring of confidence in your voice
and it will help you get ahead
in business, increase your in-
come, develop leadership.

— Eugene Feuchtinger

AMAZING DETAILS -Just fill in
coupon and rush it back to me today

You'll find this training enjoyable as well as valuable — as
Ii.im more than 150,000 other ambitious students during the
i • • i ’• I years. Helps both your speaking and your singing.

• H (raining lessons, mostly silent. You get your results in
tin privacy of your own room. No music required. Every-
tliiiiK handled confidentially and all mail is sent in plain
"i upper l ak e this first step toward your personal self-ad-

meni now, it’s free . . . send for my fascinating illustrated

I I. In I low to Strengthen Your Voice to be More Success-

ful ' Simply fill in and mail this coupon today. (Cannot be
ni unless you state your age.)

PREFECT VOICE INSTITUTE, Studio oooo

'J 10 South Clinton St. Chicago 6, III.

1 1 » 1 1 1 » « 1 1 u

wff'ssrwRj

f MAIL
THIS

PREFECT VOICE INSTITUTE
Key MY-158 210 South Clinton St.
Chicago 6, III.

COUPON-

TODAY

Please send me — free and without obligation
— your inspiring and helpful illustrated booklet
"How to Strengthen Your Voice to be More
Successful," by Eugene Feuchtinger. Mail in
plain wrapper. No salesman will call.

NAME

PI! Jl learn Another

UU rLAU> LANGUAGE

Easily, Quickly, Naturally

by LINGUAPHONE

file World’s Standard Conversational Method

busihBS

* Professional and Educational Advancement

* Greater Scientific and Business Opportunities

* Doubled Travel Enjoyment
•Wider Social and Cultural Horizons

* Special Assignments in Armed Forces, Government Service

Another language helps you "go places” in business, where great opportunities are inter*
national; m the armed forces and government agencies, where bi-linguistic ability i$ neededi
in science, travel and cultural achievement, where new adventures await you!

AN ^ASTOUNDING” FACT

You Can Learn Another language in just 20 minutes a day AT HOME*

FRENCH * SPANISH * GERMAN • JAPANESE

ITALIAN • PORTUGESE * RUSSIAN • HEBREW

-—any of 29 languages— -available by Linguaphane —

No textbook can teach you to SPEAK

Linguaphone is the natural way to learn a language — actually the same way you
learned English even before you went to school. You bring a foreign land right
into your own home— You hear men and women speak in their native tongue.
You listen — you learn , you understand! You speak with correct pronunciation,
proper tonal inflection. You learn to read and write— it’s all amazingly easy.

LINGUAPHONE INSTITUTE * 225-10 Radio City, N. Y.

STOP Wishing — START Talking

FREE book gives fascinating facts about LINGUAPHONE — why it is used internationally by
Colleges, schools, U.N., I.R.O., government agencies, armed services, and has been the choice
of more than one million home study students. Mail coupon TODAY!

Course approved for Veterans’ Training

LINGUAPHONE INSTITUTE

225-10 Radio City, IN. Y. 20, N. Y,

Send me the FREE Linguaphone Book. I want to learn ..............

language.

for. (state purpose)

Name,

Address,

City....

. State .

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Texts

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Space Science Fiction v01n04 (1953 02) (Gorgon776)"

See other formats